Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning

1. Official Site
2. Platform: PC
3. Publisher: Electronic Arts
4. Developer: Mythic Entertainment
5. Release Date: 09/18/08
6. Genre: RPG

by Chuck Greer

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning has gone through a number of changes through the years, beginning as an MMO from Climax Online back in 2004, which collapsed soon afterward, leaving Games Workshop to approach Mythic, makers of Dark Age of Camelot, in 2005.

It then spent the next three years gathering about as much hype as any MMO not called World of Warcraft. At the same time, it drew numerous comparisons with the 800-pound gorilla of the MMO world.  Featuring a heavy dose of PvP (or in Mythic-speak, RvR for Realm vs. Realm), and over twenty-five years of backstory, it is one of the most ambitious releases in recent MMO history.

With World of Warcraft gobbling up subscribers as fast as they get computers, will WAR be able to strike a blow, or will it turn into just another fantasy MMO?

In a first for Gaming Trend, we are reviewing this from two viewpoints:  Chuck will be handling much of the Order-side review, while Jason will be handling Destruction.  Also, since no MMO is ever truly complete, we will be doing updates now and again to update everyone on what has changed and what other parts of the game are like. 

As with many of our PC titles, our specs for testing are as follows:

Chuck: Athlon AMD 4200 X2 Dual Core, 3GB Ram, GeForce 8800 GT 512MB Video Card on Windows XP SP3

Jason:  Intel Core2Duo E6600, 4GB Ram, GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB Video Card on Windows Vista SP1

Final Note:  As with any MMO, it is nearly impossible to give a full review.  This review will cover primarily Tiers 1 and 2, with further updates covering later gameplay.

Chuck:

Compared to other modern MMORPG's, Warhammer holds par. While a step above World of Warcraft, Warhammer is at best comparable with say, Age of Conan. The enviroments are highly detailed and beautiful, but character models are bland at best, while graphic bugs often rear their ugly head. Nothing too abnormal in a new MMORPG, but annoying just the same. The good thing is that if your PC can handle it, the game is pretty much stable and fluid and looks very good. The question remains, though, that if the graphics are barely above average, why does it take so long to load? Hopefully the issues i have described will be addressed in future patches.

Jason:

I noticed right off that for all of the comparisons to WoW, the actual environment was much improved. While the character models did share a somewhat similar style, WAR features quite a bit of surrounding flora which definitely increased the level of detail over WoW.   I didn't see as much blandness from the character models, other than the early-level armor which seemed quite cookie-cutter.  Character generation didn't give a lot of visual options, either, although I have to admit that the tattoos and glowing eyes on the Bright Wizards was pretty cool.  Likewise, I didn't see very many graphical bugs other than one /very/ annoying one that involves quest text and my character picture. This has persisted since Open Beta and through a reinstall. I will second the loading times, which seem to be optimization, cache or memory-related.  Ignore the box here, folks.  If you can get 4 gigs of ram (and with DDR2 prices being what they are, there's little reason you can't), go for it.  WAR eats memory like a starving man at a Chinese buffet.

Jason:

Most MMOs aren't really purchased for the musical score.  However, I found myself pretty surprised at times when I would hear certain bits of music, and not want to fight while I listened.  Not all of the music in the game was of this quality, but there was enough here and there that it kept me entertained.  The voice acting is hit or miss, at best, but when it hits, it really is perfect, showing off some of the dark humor that pervades the universe.

Outside of that, the general ambiance and sound effects are very solid.  Magic makes appropriate-sounding magical-sounds, weapons have a satisfying audio response, and the entire game echoes with the sounds of conflict.

Chuck:

Sound is an afterthought to me in MMORPGS. Either I am listening to a chat client or have the volume turned down. I have always held the belief in these types of games that if the sound distracts me from the game. The only problem I had with the sound was the NPCs' random speech will grate on your nerves at times. Other than that, nothing special and nothing too detrimental.

Chuck:

Controls are pretty normal fare for this type of game. No major innovations, but if the formula isn't broke, why fix it? I'd suggest printing out a copy of the keyboard functions until you get used to it but if you have played any online roleplaying game, it is pretty much standard fare.

Jason:

Chuck pretty much nailed it.  MMO controls have not changed much at all since Everquest, and beyond minor things, there hasn't really been much need .  If you're used to WoW, or anything else similar, then you can pick up the controls in WAR without too much of an issue.  Beyond that, the game features nearly-complete keymapping, which means you can set things how you want them.  The UI is also completely customizable and XML-moddable, and the mod-makers are hard at work creating things all over the place for our use.

There are a few things about the UI that bug me, though.  One being the location of the 'tips'.  They pop up at the bottom of your screen, and if you're playing a Witch Elf or something similar, they can stick right where the tooltips for your powerups go. This can make it hard to clear.  Hopefully this can be patched to be a bit more user-intuitive.

Chuck:

Starting out in Warhammer is pretty much like every other MMORPG ever released. You create your character, choosing its side (Order or Destruction), race, and class - pretty much standard fare. Once done, you are given a short intro movie based on your choices and into the game world you go. As you start off you are slowly introduced to gameplay by numerous quests in your starting area. There is no lack of information here. If you don't believe me, just check out the Tome of Knowledge for all the information you could ever want. You will get quest markers and pop-ups expaining pretty much every new thing you are introduced to as you go along. As you progress you will start to notice so pretty nice differences from normal MMORPGS.

Right from the start PVP instances are available. If you are too low a level, the game ramps up your hps and equipment so you can at least be competitive. The game is seperated in "tiers", or by levels. Tier 1 is for levels 1-10, tier 2 for levels 11-20 and so on. Each tier is two pretty massive zones filled to the brim with towns, mobs and the like. The further along the zones you venture, the harder the mobs will get. You are also introduced to public quests. Throughout each zone are numerous public quests in which anyone the proper level can join the battle. These public quests are usually a series of increasingly difficult groups of monsters. The rewards to these are awarded according to participation and damage done during the quest. Rewards are items given and renown points which can be used to purchase items.

Public quests are an excellent idea, but are really population dependant. If there are plenty of people your level in your area, public quests are a blast. If there aren't well, public quests are a burden, especially if you are trying to complete a regular quest in said public quest. Public quests are made with groups in mind and if you don't have a good group, you won't get very far. PVP is a lot more fun since you can join in at any level. The instances are pretty much your normal pvp instances, capture the flag, deathmatch etc. As mentioned earlier, experience is awarded according to level of participation, which is actually a breath of fresh air compared to other games which sometimes only require you to be in the instance to get rewarded. You can also join in regular zone area pvp.

Another nice change of pace is that every zone is contested. Participating is completely optional, but the rewards are far worth the effort. Every zone has points that need to be conquered and held in order to get bonuses. But there again, it depends on participation which seems to be a problem on the servers I played on. Even high population servers tend to be sparse at best most of the time. Also, even though you are given quest markers for quests, I felt lost sometimes. The normal quests are often times at other ends of zones you might not have business in at your given level. As mentioned above, this game rewards grouping, not soloing. Also, leveling is slow but for all but the most ardent power gamers. And mob fights take forever. Everything about the game just feels sluggish compared to the competition.

I would like to note that I would have mentioned crafting, but I honestly felt the need to wait until it was actually inserted into the game.

Jason:

Again, character creation is pretty much the same as many other MMOS. It does not have much of the customization that say, EVE or City of X gives you, but it's still a bit more than WoW.  You have your standard hairstyles and eye and hair color, as well as a little bit of ornamentation in the way of tattoos, scars and the like.

So, outside of your basic MMO setup, what does WAR have that other MMOs don't (and wish very much that they did)?  The first thing you'll notice immediately on finishing the opening video is that it is a world at war.  Not fifty feet from the starting Dark Elf spot is a battle between the High Elves and Dark Elves, and your first quest is to go kill some High Elves.  Quite a few quests involve killing those of your opposing race, and that's how much of the game is set up.  Race vs Race and eventually Realm Vs. Realm.  The game makes excellent use of the story. Even though the quests tend to run very similarly to the standard "Kill 5 So and Sos" or "Collect 6 Doohickeys", the story makes up for it and makes it mean just a bit more.  There are the amusing quests, such as a Dark Elf one where you mesmerize a High Elf and bring him back to be enslaved, or one where you unleash Cold Ones (think velociraptors) in the middle of some high elf civilians.

As Chuck said, PVP (or Realm vs. Realm) is everywhere.  It isn't required, but it's so much a part of the game that there's really no reason not to do it.  In fact, the first major camp of the Dark Elves features your first PVP quest, which involves entering a scenario (similar to a Battleground for you WoW fans) and having at it.  Now, here's where it gets fun.  Not only do you get quest XP for doing this quest and playing in the scenario, you get instaboosted to Level 8 (at Tier 1). If you're not there already, this prevents you from being horribly outmatched. However, gear and skills do play a hefty role, so you'll still be at somewhat of a disadvantage. You also get XP and gold for killing people, and if you're lucky, magic items will drop. That's right. Kill other players and get XP, gold, and loot. So what if you die? It's not like you actually lose anything. In fact, there are two types of XP to gain: normal XP to raise your rank (level), and renown, which increases your Renown Rank. Renown Rank is required for certain armor pieces and goodies later down the line, as well as for giving you titles. 

RvR continues through the four Tiers.  Each race has a major zone for each tier, with the opposing race's zone being right next door.  You go through the first Tier and end up at a Warcamp.  Here you'll find a number of trainers, your flight path, as well as a number of quests that involve - you guessed it - killing players and exploring the open RvR zones.  In Tier 1, it's basically a number of capture points, with each one having a few NPCs to guard them.  Each point that's captured by either side gives their side a bonus in that Tier, from bonuses to healing and XP to discounts and bonuses while buying and selling items.  Later Tiers add more to this formula, with Tier 2 adding keeps, with the final goal being an assault on the opposing side's city to raze it down to level 1.  In fact, your capital cities can level through quests, which open up new merchants, new quests, and more benefits for everyone who visits.

Speaking of titles, it's time to talk about everyone's best friend, the Tome of Knowledge.  It combines the best features of pretty much any MMO all into one, and gives it its own twist.  It contains your quest journal, your storyline information, info on monsters and important NPCs, armor sets you've found, titles you've been rewarded, and oh yes, Achievements.  Mythic knew the same thing Microsoft discovered on the Xbox 360.  We like Achievements, and you get them in so many different ways, you'll probably get an Achievement just for finding out how many Achievements there are!  They range from ones for killing players, killing monsters, dying to players, dying to monsters, looting things, destroying things, selling things, crafting things, talking to players, NOT talking to players via ignore, touching yourself, falling off of things, talking to random NPCs, killing random monsters....it just goes on and on and on and on.  There are even some specific to guilds, leading guilds, or killing those who lead guilds.  The Tome of Knowledge is quite simply the best thing ever to hit MMOs, and the landscape will be forever changed by WAR's inclusion of this wonderful and devious little thing.

The last major addition to the MMO landscape is WAR's Public Quests.  Quite simply, Public Quests are quests that everyone can help in and usually take place in a small area.  Each PQ takes place in three phases.  Generally, the first phase involves just killing a large number of certain monsters.  Each monster you kill in a PQ gives you influence, which is useful not only for the PQ itself, but also for Influence Rewards in each Chapter of the game, which have three tiers:  Potions, minor armor, and then a major weapon or armor for your level.  Once the first phase of the PQ is done, the second phase begins, which usually involves killing a smaller number of more powerful Champion mobs (similar to Elites in WoW), which is aimed at a party of equal-level players.  The third phase then kicks in, where players face off against one or more Hero strength mobs, which are almost raid-strength in quality.

Once the PQ is finished, a scoreboard pops up, letting everyone know how they did compared to others.  The top 8 or so are given a bonus to a random roll, although they can still roll poorly on the actual treasure roll.  A chest will then open with a certain number of loot bags ranging from common (which has a range of treasure from coin, to crafting items, to smaller bits of armor), uncommon, and all the way up.  The more rare the loot bag, the better the item that is available within it (although all lower tiers are available as well.) If you loot a rare bag but already have the rare item from that PQ, you can loot a common or uncommon item if you haven't gotten it yet, or just go for the coins.  Then, after a few moments, the PQ will reset all over again.  To be honest, the only drawback in PQs are finding enough people to run them - especially the ones that are more out of the way compared to the quest-givers and trainers.

Even with the best game there are weaknesses and drawbacks, and WAR is no different.  One of the biggest, at least in my eyes, is the mail and banking system.  While there are mailboxes all over, for a good while you could only mail one item at a time, and there was a 20 second delay between mailings.  This meant that getting items to a guild mate or an alt could be troublesome at best, which compounds the difficulties of the game's crafting system.  This has been improved, admittedly, but it still has a way to go to be even remotely usable for heavy crafting uses.  "But Jason," people have said, "that's what the banks and guild banks are for!"  Normally, I'd agree.  Except, for some reason, WAR has chosen to place the one bank (yes, I said one) per side in the capital city, which means that you have to run to the nearest flight path, fly to town, deal with the lag there, go to the bank, and then run back.  This is not exactly the most fun thing to do, and leads to a lot of people just selling things rather than giving them to their friends, their alts, or selling them on the Auction House.  The auction house only being in the city makes sense.  Banks?  Not quite so much.

So let's talk about crafting, shall we?  In WAR there are two creation tradeskills (Talisman Making and Apothecary) and three gathering skills (Scavenging, Magical Salvaging, and Butchery), with one that is somewhat in the middle (Cultivating).  Each player can only choose one of the creation skills and one of the other four, which is a problem, when each of the two creation skills rely on at least two of the other four skills. Magical Salvaging and Scavenging give items for Talisman Making, and Butchery gives items for Apothecary. Scavenging and Butchery can sometimes give items for the opposite creation skill.  Also, the game seems heavily weighted early on towards Apothecary, with many of your tradeskill drops falling for that tradeskill.  This wouldn't be as much of a problem, and would help with player economy, if it weren't for the aforementioned problems with the mail and banking systems.  Also, people replace their weapons and armor often enough at early levels that there's very little benefit in using low-level Talismans. The simple fact is that they don't give much benefit, have a very short lifespan, and are only usable on items that are less powerful than quest reward items (which is what most people tend to have). The crafting system is a good idea, but it needs some serious work to make it really worth the time and the effort.  It's actually a more complex, less varied crafting system than even World of Warcraft, which seemed quite skimpy at times.

Chuck:

With 3 different starting areas per side, there is plenty of content for grinders out there. All three areas are accessible for all races so you can go where you like best. Add that along to the fleshed out PvP and 40 levels, and you have untold hours of replayability.

Jason:

A lot of this really depends on Mythic's committment to patching this game and adding content, both free and in the form of paid expansions.  We've already been told that some of the cut classes are coming back, as well as eventually the other capital cities.  Fixing the bugs, fleshing out the end game and adding new content will go a long way towards keeping players from the lure of other MMOs and expansions coming out.

Jason: 

I've seen WAR in one form or another since E3 2005.  It's come a long way, and the guys at Mythic have proven that they really do know how to build, launch and run a MMO.  The game is not perfect, and it definitely needs some further work in some pretty critical areas. However, let's be really honest here - that's true of every MMO.  MMOs are never finished until the server are turned off, and there is always something that is broken and needs fixing (which usually breaks something else).  It's an ongoing process, and it's less the bugs that can ruin a game as much as it is a lack of commitment by the developing team in keeping the game a going concern.  I truly enjoy this game. It'll be very interesting to see what the next six to twelve months hold for WAR, especially if it can maintain its user base in the front of WotLK and Mines of Moria both coming out within the next few weeks.

Chuck:

Unlike Jason, I haven't been following Warhammer. But what I can say is that I have played probably 95% of all major MMORPG's released since Ultima (not counting the thousands of overseas ones). Is Warhammer a WoW killer? No, I don't think so. Is it a good game with a ton of potential? Absolutely. Anyone tired of the WoW juggernaut or who wants something else to try are doing themselves a disservice by not giving Warhammer a try. With just a little TLC it has the ability to grow very long legs.

Gaming Trend Score

89

1. Graphics: 85
2. Audio: 88
3. Controls: 90
4. Gameplay: 89
5. Value/Replay: 94
6. OVERALL:89