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Real news from the virtual world:

-HAMMER TIME: Four years after its launch, Blizzard Entertainment’s “World of Warcraft” continues to dominate the field of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (known by the acronym MMORPG). It’s not for lack of competition; dozens of companies have tried to peel off some of the 10 million “WoW” subscribers, only to be stymied by technical problems, lack of polish and player attrition. Funcom’s “Age of Conan,” for example, got off to a fast start earlier this year, only to be derailed by those problems.

The latest challenger is determined to avoid such issues. “Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning,” the sword-and-sorcery fantasy developed by Mythic Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts, has already attracted 750,000 players since its September debut. But Mythic co-founder Mark Jacobs said: “The launch is just the beginning. Even the first year is only a step.”

“No MMORPG is ever ready to go out,” Jacobs said. “These games are so complicated, you can never get it 100 per cent right.” For a new online game to succeed, he said, players have to be “able to do everything it says on the box.”

“Warhammer” executive producer Jeff Hickman said the goal is to “keep the momentum going,” especially with the busy holiday season and a much-anticipated “WoW” expansion coming up. “We stay on top of what’s going on, and we’re going to keep expanding,” Hickman said. “We care about what the players are saying. Our first two patches were about making players happy - within reason.”

Creative director Paul Barnett said “Warhammer” is more than a computer game, it’s a hobby. “And at 50 cents a day,” he added, “it’s the most cost-effective hobby in the digital age.”

-VIRTUAL OBAMA: Most of us have got used to ads in video games, particularly in sports games, where they provide a dose of realism. It makes sense that you’d see a Ford billboard in “Need for Speed,” or a Puma poster in “NBA Live.” But wait: What’s Barack Obama doing in “Burnout Paradise”?

If your Xbox 360 is connected to the Internet, you may see ads for Obama in some 18 games, including “Madden NFL 09.” The Obama campaign is targeting gamers in 10 states that allow early voting; the ads promote a website, VoteforChange.com, that explains the process.

“It reaches an audience that is typically hard to reach - young males, roughly 18 to 34,” said Holly Rockwood, a spokeswoman for Electronic Arts, publisher of all the above. “That’s very appealing to our advertisers.” There’s no indication that Republican John McCain’s campaign will mount a similar strategy.

-FEAR OF MUSIC: The most intriguing PlayStation 3 game of the year is Sony’s “LittleBigPlanet.” Unfortunately, it got a little too intriguing when an early reviewer discovered a few quotes from the Quran embedded in a musical track.

Sony recalled all copies of the game, which was due to go on sale this week. “We have taken immediate action to rectify this and we sincerely apologize for any offence that this may have caused,” said corporate communications director Patrick Seybold. Revised “LittleBigPlanet” discs should go out next week.

-NEW IN STORES: Microsoft’s “Fable II,” the long-awaited epic from “Black & White” mastermind Peter Molyneux, arrives on the Xbox 360. … Ubisoft’s exotic first-person shooter series goes to Africa in “Far Cry 2″ (for the 360, PlayStation 3). Rockstar revs up two new chapters of its “Midnight Club” street racer: “Los Angeles” (360, PS3) and “L.A. Remix” (PlayStation Portable). … Nintendo invites you to create your own orchestra with “Wii Music.” … Marvel’s friendly neighbourhood web-slinger embarks on a new adventure in “Spider-Man: Web of Shadows” (Activision, most systems). … Dracula’s back in Konami’s “Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia” (DS). … Majesco takes a fresh approach to the classic dungeon crawl in “Away: Shuffle Dungeon” (DS). … Disney delivers a batch of new delights for the kids, including “Think Fast” (Wii), “Sing It” (360, PS3, PS2), “High School Musical 3: Senior Year Dance!” (360, Wii, PS3, PS2) and - for those of you who are bored with “Madden NFL 09″ - “Disney Fairies: Tinker Bell” (DS).

Related Topics:

• The Xbox 360 version of a lack- luster strategy game from a few years ago, “Warhammer: Battle March” doesn’t improve on the original. Actually, it’s a bit worse, as the precision of mouse and keyboard controls has been lost in the game’s transfer to the console. A serviceable but finger-twisting control scheme has been shoehorned in to work with the Xbox 360 controller, but it doesn’t feel responsive – a common complaint in this genre. At least the “Warhammer” world is interesting, and players can spend hours tweaking and painting their perfect army for online matches. Players choose from three campaigns – one each for the Empire, the Orcs or the forces of Chaos – and take their prearranged armies into battle, mission by mission. Units that survive a fight can be replenished and strengthened with new items and such, and new squads can be hired, but what players take with them onto the battlefield is generally all they have in a fight. Microsoft Xbox 360; $59.99 Age rating: Mature Wipeout HD 3 stars “Wipeout HD” takes several tracks from the two PlayStation Portable “Wipeout” games, tweaks them and shines them up for the big screen. As such, the game plays very much like it does on the PSP – but everything’s bigger and prettier. The racing is lightning-fast and flashy; players pilot zippy anti-gravity vehicles through futuristic tracks. Going fast is easy, but turning is tougher. These racers don’t grip the road, so players have to pair their turns with air brakes to make those tight corners. There are races against other vehicles, solo time trials and speed laps, and some other modes. In multi-vehicle races, players can pick up items while going through the tracks; some are weapons, others are speed boosts or defensive shields. Sony PlayStation 3 (PlayStation Network download); $19.99 Age rating: 10-plus World of Goo 3 1/2 stars In “World of Goo,” players use googly-eyed balls of goo to create semirigid structures leading to an exit pipe – to finish a stage, a certain number of globs must make it into the pipe. It’s a captivating, physics-based puzzle game. The simple graphics adhere to a charming style, and the music ranges from moody to madcap. The trick is to not run short of goo. The globs themselves form the structure they travel along, and whether they’re permanently stuck that way depends on the level and what kinds of goo are available. There are obstacles such as water and spikes that can take goo globs away, too. PC (2boy.com download), also for Nintendo Wii (WiiWare download); $20; 1,500 Wii points ($15) Age rating: Everyone – Justin Hoeger
• The Xbox 360 version of a lack- luster strategy game from a few years ago, “Warhammer: Battle March” doesn’t improve on the original. Actually, it’s a bit worse, as the precision of mouse and keyboard controls has been lost in the game’s transfer to the console. A serviceable but finger-twisting control scheme has been shoehorned in to work with the Xbox 360 controller, but it doesn’t feel responsive – a common complaint in this genre. At least the “Warhammer” world is interesting, and players can spend hours tweaking and painting their perfect army for online matches. Players choose from three campaigns – one each for the Empire, the Orcs or the forces of Chaos – and take their prearranged armies into battle, mission by mission. Units that survive a fight can be replenished and strengthened with new items and such, and new squads can be hired, but what players take with them onto the battlefield is generally all they have in a fight. Microsoft Xbox 360; $59.99 Age rating: Mature Wipeout HD 3 stars “Wipeout HD” takes several tracks from the two PlayStation Portable “Wipeout” games, tweaks them and shines them up for the big screen. As such, the game plays very much like it does on the PSP – but everything’s bigger and prettier. The racing is lightning-fast and flashy; players pilot zippy anti-gravity vehicles through futuristic tracks. Going fast is easy, but turning is tougher. These racers don’t grip the road, so players have to pair their turns with air brakes to make those tight corners. There are races against other vehicles, solo time trials and speed laps, and some other modes. In multi-vehicle races, players can pick up items while going through the tracks; some are weapons, others are speed boosts or defensive shields. Sony PlayStation 3 (PlayStation Network download); $19.99 Age rating: 10-plus World of Goo 3 1/2 stars In “World of Goo,” players use googly-eyed balls of goo to create semirigid structures leading to an exit pipe – to finish a stage, a certain number of globs must make it into the pipe. It’s a captivating, physics-based puzzle game. The simple graphics adhere to a charming style, and the music ranges from moody to madcap. The trick is to not run short of goo. The globs themselves form the structure they travel along, and whether they’re permanently stuck that way depends on the level and what kinds of goo are available. There are obstacles such as water and spikes that can take goo globs away, too. PC (2boy.com download), also for Nintendo Wii (WiiWare download); $20; 1,500 Wii points ($15) Age rating: Everyone – Justin Hoeger
• The Xbox 360 version of a lack- luster strategy game from a few years ago, “Warhammer: Battle March” doesn’t improve on the original. Actually, it’s a bit worse, as the precision of mouse and keyboard controls has been lost in the game’s transfer to the console. A serviceable but finger-twisting control scheme has been shoehorned in to work with the Xbox 360 controller, but it doesn’t feel responsive – a common complaint in this genre. At least the “Warhammer” world is interesting, and players can spend hours tweaking and painting their perfect army for online matches. Players choose from three campaigns – one each for the Empire, the Orcs or the forces of Chaos – and take their prearranged armies into battle, mission by mission. Units that survive a fight can be replenished and strengthened with new items and such, and new squads can be hired, but what players take with them onto the battlefield is generally all they have in a fight. Microsoft Xbox 360; $59.99 Age rating: Mature Wipeout HD 3 stars “Wipeout HD” takes several tracks from the two PlayStation Portable “Wipeout” games, tweaks them and shines them up for the big screen. As such, the game plays very much like it does on the PSP – but everything’s bigger and prettier. The racing is lightning-fast and flashy; players pilot zippy anti-gravity vehicles through futuristic tracks. Going fast is easy, but turning is tougher. These racers don’t grip the road, so players have to pair their turns with air brakes to make those tight corners. There are races against other vehicles, solo time trials and speed laps, and some other modes. In multi-vehicle races, players can pick up items while going through the tracks; some are weapons, others are speed boosts or defensive shields. Sony PlayStation 3 (PlayStation Network download); $19.99 Age rating: 10-plus World of Goo 3 1/2 stars In “World of Goo,” players use googly-eyed balls of goo to create semirigid structures leading to an exit pipe – to finish a stage, a certain number of globs must make it into the pipe. It’s a captivating, physics-based puzzle game. The simple graphics adhere to a charming style, and the music ranges from moody to madcap. The trick is to not run short of goo. The globs themselves form the structure they travel along, and whether they’re permanently stuck that way depends on the level and what kinds of goo are available. There are obstacles such as water and spikes that can take goo globs away, too. PC (2boy.com download), also for Nintendo Wii (WiiWare download); $20; 1,500 Wii points ($15) Age rating: Everyone – Justin Hoeger
• The Xbox 360 version of a lack- luster strategy game from a few years ago, “Warhammer: Battle March” doesn’t improve on the original. Actually, it’s a bit worse, as the precision of mouse and keyboard controls has been lost in the game’s transfer to the console. A serviceable but finger-twisting control scheme has been shoehorned in to work with the Xbox 360 controller, but it doesn’t feel responsive – a common complaint in this genre. At least the “Warhammer” world is interesting, and players can spend hours tweaking and painting their perfect army for online matches. Players choose from three campaigns – one each for the Empire, the Orcs or the forces of Chaos – and take their prearranged armies into battle, mission by mission. Units that survive a fight can be replenished and strengthened with new items and such, and new squads can be hired, but what players take with them onto the battlefield is generally all they have in a fight. Microsoft Xbox 360; $59.99 Age rating: Mature Wipeout HD 3 stars “Wipeout HD” takes several tracks from the two PlayStation Portable “Wipeout” games, tweaks them and shines them up for the big screen. As such, the game plays very much like it does on the PSP – but everything’s bigger and prettier. The racing is lightning-fast and flashy; players pilot zippy anti-gravity vehicles through futuristic tracks. Going fast is easy, but turning is tougher. These racers don’t grip the road, so players have to pair their turns with air brakes to make those tight corners. There are races against other vehicles, solo time trials and speed laps, and some other modes. In multi-vehicle races, players can pick up items while going through the tracks; some are weapons, others are speed boosts or defensive shields. Sony PlayStation 3 (PlayStation Network download); $19.99 Age rating: 10-plus World of Goo 3 1/2 stars In “World of Goo,” players use googly-eyed balls of goo to create semirigid structures leading to an exit pipe – to finish a stage, a certain number of globs must make it into the pipe. It’s a captivating, physics-based puzzle game. The simple graphics adhere to a charming style, and the music ranges from moody to madcap. The trick is to not run short of goo. The globs themselves form the structure they travel along, and whether they’re permanently stuck that way depends on the level and what kinds of goo are available. There are obstacles such as water and spikes that can take goo globs away, too. PC (2boy.com download), also for Nintendo Wii (WiiWare download); $20; 1,500 Wii points ($15) Age rating: Everyone – Justin Hoeger
• The Xbox 360 version of a lack- luster strategy game from a few years ago, “Warhammer: Battle March” doesn’t improve on the original. Actually, it’s a bit worse, as the precision of mouse and keyboard controls has been lost in the game’s transfer to the console. A serviceable but finger-twisting control scheme has been shoehorned in to work with the Xbox 360 controller, but it doesn’t feel responsive – a common complaint in this genre. At least the “Warhammer” world is interesting, and players can spend hours tweaking and painting their perfect army for online matches. Players choose from three campaigns – one each for the Empire, the Orcs or the forces of Chaos – and take their prearranged armies into battle, mission by mission. Units that survive a fight can be replenished and strengthened with new items and such, and new squads can be hired, but what players take with them onto the battlefield is generally all they have in a fight. Microsoft Xbox 360; $59.99 Age rating: Mature Wipeout HD 3 stars “Wipeout HD” takes several tracks from the two PlayStation Portable “Wipeout” games, tweaks them and shines them up for the big screen. As such, the game plays very much like it does on the PSP – but everything’s bigger and prettier. The racing is lightning-fast and flashy; players pilot zippy anti-gravity vehicles through futuristic tracks. Going fast is easy, but turning is tougher. These racers don’t grip the road, so players have to pair their turns with air brakes to make those tight corners. There are races against other vehicles, solo time trials and speed laps, and some other modes. In multi-vehicle races, players can pick up items while going through the tracks; some are weapons, others are speed boosts or defensive shields. Sony PlayStation 3 (PlayStation Network download); $19.99 Age rating: 10-plus World of Goo 3 1/2 stars In “World of Goo,” players use googly-eyed balls of goo to create semirigid structures leading to an exit pipe – to finish a stage, a certain number of globs must make it into the pipe. It’s a captivating, physics-based puzzle game. The simple graphics adhere to a charming style, and the music ranges from moody to madcap. The trick is to not run short of goo. The globs themselves form the structure they travel along, and whether they’re permanently stuck that way depends on the level and what kinds of goo are available. There are obstacles such as water and spikes that can take goo globs away, too. PC (2boy.com download), also for Nintendo Wii (WiiWare download); $20; 1,500 Wii points ($15) Age rating: Everyone – Justin Hoeger

No man is perfect. You cannot be a Mac daddy, liked by people all over the world. So it is with war power leveling. Although it can provide express fun experience of high level, not all the MMORPG players use Warhammer power leveling.
Since warhammer online gongce, more and more MMORPG players joined this game. At the same time, a few of them chose Warhammer online power leveling so that they can find happiness of high level while do not have to level their characters hour after hour. They may buy 12 hours warhammer leveling, 24 hours Warhammer leveling, or 1-10/10-20/20-30 warhammer leveling packages as they like.
As is mentioned, they pay for War leveling because they wanna find happiness. But someone did become angry because of the war power leveling. They may be unsatisfied with the skills learned or the delay of delivery which is the most common reason. If they became angry for the skills reason, why not express your order clearly before you allowed them to start the power leveling? While If you are angry for the delay, and mostly because of the updating of the game system, are you finding a reason to become angry? You are really finding trouble yourselves. It is unavoidable. If you do wanna be angry, you forgot the reason why you chose Warhammer leveling. You wanna find happiness not trouble.
So before you buy War power leveling and pay for it, kindly make sure what do you want. Wanna find trouble or happiness?

Related Topics:

• Picks and Pans: Warhammer: Battle March, Wipeout HD, more
• Picks and Pans: Warhammer: Battle March, Wipeout HD, more
• Picks and Pans: Warhammer: Battle March, Wipeout HD, more
• Picks and Pans: Warhammer: Battle March, Wipeout HD, more
• Picks and Pans: Warhammer: Battle March, Wipeout HD, more

The Xbox 360 version of a lack- luster strategy game from a few years ago, “Warhammer: Battle March” doesn’t improve on the original. Actually, it’s a bit worse, as the precision of mouse and keyboard controls has been lost in the game’s transfer to the console. A serviceable but finger-twisting control scheme has been shoehorned in to work with the Xbox 360 controller, but it doesn’t feel responsive – a common complaint in this genre. At least the “Warhammer” world is interesting, and players can spend hours tweaking and painting their perfect army for online matches.

Players choose from three campaigns – one each for the Empire, the Orcs or the forces of Chaos – and take their prearranged armies into battle, mission by mission. Units that survive a fight can be replenished and strengthened with new items and such, and new squads can be hired, but what players take with them onto the battlefield is generally all they have in a fight.

Microsoft Xbox 360; $59.99

Age rating: Mature

Wipeout HD
3 stars

“Wipeout HD” takes several tracks from the two PlayStation Portable “Wipeout” games, tweaks them and shines them up for the big screen. As such, the game plays very much like it does on the PSP – but everything’s bigger and prettier.

The racing is lightning-fast and flashy; players pilot zippy anti-gravity vehicles through futuristic tracks. Going fast is easy, but turning is tougher. These racers don’t grip the road, so players have to pair their turns with air brakes to make those tight corners.

There are races against other vehicles, solo time trials and speed laps, and some other modes. In multi-vehicle races, players can pick up items while going through the tracks; some are weapons, others are speed boosts or defensive shields.

Sony PlayStation 3 (PlayStation Network download); $19.99

Age rating: 10-plus

World of Goo
3 1/2 stars

In “World of Goo,” players use googly-eyed balls of goo to create semirigid structures leading to an exit pipe – to finish a stage, a certain number of globs must make it into the pipe. It’s a captivating, physics-based puzzle game. The simple graphics adhere to a charming style, and the music ranges from moody to madcap.

The trick is to not run short of goo. The globs themselves form the structure they travel along, and whether they’re permanently stuck that way depends on the level and what kinds of goo are available. There are obstacles such as water and spikes that can take goo globs away, too.

PC (2boy.com download), also for Nintendo Wii (WiiWare download); $20; 1,500 Wii points ($15)

Age rating: Everyone

– Justin Hoeger

Related Topics:

• Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm v1.1.0 French Patch
• Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm v1.1.0 French Patch
• Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm v1.1.0 French Patch
• Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm v1.1.0 French Patch
• Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm v1.1.0 French Patch

Description: - Fixed Sisters of Battle Holy Icon resource bug.
- Fixed Dark Eldar Observer Soul Powers bug.
- Fixed Eldar Harlequin’s Dance of Death ability that reset the player’s resources.
- The Illusory Monolith will no longer become real if there are Flayed Ones inside.
- Addressed an issue with trainers working in multiplayer games.
- The automatch matching range has been changed. Players will now only match up if they are within 200 points of each other.
- Observers can no longer use Dark Eldar soul powers.
- Harlequin dance of death no longer drains the player’s resources.
- The Deceiver’s illusionary monolith will now always despawn correctly when the ability duration is complete.

Related Topics:

• Star Wars, Warhammer MMOs May Come to Consoles
• Star Wars, Warhammer MMOs May Come to Consoles
• Star Wars, Warhammer MMOs May Come to Consoles
• Star Wars, Warhammer MMOs May Come to Consoles
• Star Wars, Warhammer MMOs May Come to Consoles

If you, like many console owners, were wondering where the heck a PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 version of Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO were hiding, you’re not alone.

The good news is LucasArts and BioWare are “considering” bringing the MMO experience to consoles, which indirectly means the recently unveiled Star Wars title.

The bad news is the “confirmation” of console MMOs was just a blanket statement from Electronic Arts exec Frank Gibeau about future console MMO considerations (Note: EA owns BioWare).

“We’re definitely looking at the opportunity to bring the MMO experience to console, without question,” he said in an interview with Eurogamer. “We’ve got this product, and we’ve got Warhammer at play. So we’re trying to look at the primary research required to understand how would you deploy it, what the client size looks like, how big is the back-end, what the play experience looks like… Once we’ve got some of those questions answered, we’ll be able to decide which is the right play to go after.”

When Gibeau was pressed further about Star Wars and Warhammer making an appearance on consoles, he said both titles were “under consideration.” He offered no further details or confirmation beyond that, however.

As reported by GamePro, no release date was given for Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Related Topics:

• Why WoW players should switch to WAR
• Why WoW players should switch to WAR
• Why WoW players should switch to WAR
• Why WoW players should switch to WAR
• Why WoW players should switch to WAR

It’s time to leave the sunny plains of Azeroth for the bloody fields in Warhammer Online
Playing an MMO isn’t a hobby. It isn’t a pastime. It’s an obsession that grabs you by the nuts and doesn’t let go until you become a sleep-deprived zombie with an insatiable lust for more loot. MMOs aren’t just games. They’re an all consuming way of life that replaces your family with guildmates, sacrifices sleep for more raiding, and leaves you hung over with blurry visions of gear upgrades. If you’ve experienced any of these problems, you know you’ve been playing a damn good MMO.

For the past few years, World of Warcraft has been our favorite flavor of this online crack. Since its release, we’ve sampled lots of MMOs that claimed to be the next big thing. But every time we rolled a character in a different game, WoW eventually tightened the reins and tugged us back to Azeroth with its steady stream of excellent improvements and updates.

All this changed when warhammer gold: Age of Reckoning finally launched. Now there’s a different title that’s demanding ownership over every free moment we have. This new lover isn’t whispering sweet nothings in our ear like “dabu” or “zug zug.” It’s grabbing us by the throat and screaming at the top of its lungs, “Get over ‘ere you git! Da Warboss wants more humie headz! WaaAAaagh!”

We’re not saying that WoW isn’t great. We’re saying that we’re scared. We’re scared because WAR took everything we loved about WoW and improved it tenfold. Yes, WAR is that good. And we fully expect that it’ll be ruining our personal lives for the next few years at least. Whether you’re solo questing or prefer massive PvP raids, WAR feels better than every MMO we’ve played this year. Is it time to switch? We don’t know about you, but it is for us.

In WAR, Orcs don’t dance like MC Hammer outside the auction house. Why would they? They’re too busy beating down Dwarves, stealing their delicious beer, and swearing in cockney English accents. WAR doesn’t have time to waste time on silly animated emotes. There’s a war going on and everything you do helps your faction’s efforts in the epic battle between the forces of Order and Chaos.

You’ll still receive lots of the expected kill-a-bunch-of-enemies quests. After all, it’s a staple for all MMOs. But even when it comes to these ho-hum tasks, WAR manages to inject its own unique attitude into what would otherwise be another generic and forgettable quest. In one early quest we played, we were ordered to investigate some mysterious Dwarven barrels located at the frontlines of the battle outside your camp. It looked like an everyday collection quest, and we were told that “Stunties only put two fings in barrels: boom and beer.” So we were expecting to find boxes of ammunition or some tasty ale to lug back to the quest giver for a miserly reward.

Instead, an ornery Dwarf - dressed in nothing but his boxers - burst from the barrel and started punching us in the face. This is high fantasy questing at its finest, and WAR is filled with memorable moments like these.

In most MMOs, you don’t really start seriously grouping with other players until you’ve been playing for quite some time. It takes a while to build up your friends list, find the right guild, and learn the ropes before you start taking on more challenging quests with a group.

But WAR streamlines the grouping process so that joining parties, finding a large war band of players for PvP, and joining a guild isn’t reserved for those who are close to reaching their level cap. Whenever you enter a new zone, you can pull up a list of Open Groups and join other players working with the click of a button. The window lets you see how many minutes it’ll take you to reach the group by foot, whether they’re working on a Public Quest, regular PvE, or hunting enemy players for PvP kills.

Since all groups are Open Groups by default, this means that you’ll almost always find some friendly group to grind or PvP with. This simple system gives you all the fun stuff that comes with grouping from the very start and cuts out all the hassles associated with it.

We’re used to seeing towns littered with useless NPCs. They’re not there to give you quests, sell items, or repair your equipment. In a lot of cases, they don’t even have a line of canned dialogue to spout. Instead, they’re just standing around to help create the illusion that there are more than five people living there.

In WAR this is the exception, not the rule. When you enter a new town or hub, you’ll be sure to find a few NPCs staring blankly into the distance. But you’ll also notice large forces of friendly NPCs just outside the town, holding off hordes of enemies. Expect to see other players in the thick of battle, helping to hold the line against incoming forces. These are Public Quests. Think of them as bite-sized mini-raids that you’re free to join or leave at any time.

Public Quests don’t just add a sense of urgency to WAR’s brutal atmosphere. They fix it so that players naturally gravitate towards each other. Most Public Quests are placed near hubs, which ensures that there’ll be lots of passersby to join the fray and help out.

Also, because the objectives for Public Quests are fairly simple and often require that you kill large numbers of progressively stronger foes, everyone knows what they’re doing and in-depth strategizing isn’t really necessary (WAR seems to save most of that stuff for its Group Quests). This means more killing, faster rewards, and none of the hassle of waiting for replies to your looking-for-group requests in public chat.

Each zone in WAR contains a Keep that’s up for grabs in special zones reserved for PvP combat. Members from the Order and Chaos factions are constantly fighting over control of these keeps. Killing other players and capturing keeps yields all kinds of benefits to your side from extra cash when selling items to merchants to special vendors with powerful items.

Because of the Open Group system, joining a large group of players for non-instanced PvP raids isn’t exclusively for organized guilds. Like Public Quests, the PvP combat in WAR is easy to get into and will turn the most stalwart PvE care bears into bloodthirsty PvP fanatics.

But the best part about these zones so far are the siege weapons. Are you trying to defend your keep from the enemy? Climb up to the ramparts and poor some molten iron over their heads. Is your group having trouble breaking past the enemies’ defensive line? Man a cannon and clear a path so your war band can advance.

Most WoW players have thottbot.com open in a browser while they’re playing. Online databases like thottbott.com and allakhazam.com are great because you can quickly find key locations and details on quests if you’re ever stuck in the game. The only problem is that every second you spend alt-tabbing to your browser is a waste of precious time that could’ve spent playing the actual game and killing stuff.

WAR’s Tome of Knowledge eliminates much of the need for sites like these. It holds detailed information about all the quests you’re working on so you’ll never have to turn to an online database if you forgot where you should be heading to complete it.

But the Tome is so much more than an improved quest log. Just about everything you do unlocks a new page in the book. Kill an enemy for the first time and it’ll add an entry to the Tome’s Bestiary with an illustration and a description of the mob. Complete enough quests and you’ll unlock new entries in your Achievements section with fresh titles to add below your name for all to see. Talking to important NPCs will open up entries in the Noteworthy Persons section with additional background lore. Filled with pictures, maps, details on items, and all sorts of other goodies, the Tome of Knowledge is like a personal scribe that takes note of every accomplishment you’ve achieved while playing. It even gains XP and levels up as you add additional pages!

Your Tome of Knowledge isn’t the only unusual thing that levels up in WAR. Your guild levels up too! As your members grow more powerful so does your guild. Some of the rewards are superficial. For example, the highest ranking guilds will get to see groups of NPC guards bearing their guild’s banner at your capital city.

You’ll also unlock useful features as your rank swells like a calendar to plan group events and access to special merchants with powerful gear for sale.

Grinding. Grinding. Grinding. Everyone complains about how killing enemies ad nauseam in MMOs sucks. WAR has its fair share of grinding, but it never feels like a grind. Part of it has to do with the way the game cuts out all the unnecessary time sinks.

You’ll never find yourself sitting in a field of corpses, waiting for more enemies so you can try to get that fifth hunk of wolf meat to drop. Instead, WAR keeps things fast-paced with a quick respawn rate so you can get your killing done and move on without any unnecessary thumb twiddling.

Death penalties are minor and can be cured by NPC healers in hubs for a low cost. Your health and mana also regenerate quickly after battle, so there’s no need for a cooking profession to alleviate downtime between battles.

But the main reason why grinding never feels like a grind in WAR is because everything you do (and we do mean everything), level ups some aspect of your character or contributes to your faction’s war efforts. Even when you’re just questing on your own, you’re still playing an important part in your server’s group effort to conquer the other side’s capital city. Once that city has been looted, pillaged, and burned to the ground, the server will reset and the epic war will rage on again.

Make no mistake. WoW is awesome it’s not going anywhere. Lord of the Rings: Online is great. And there are elements of Age of Conan that are excellent. But WAR is the best MMO out there right now, and as servers continue to swell with more players it keeps getting better. That’s why we’ve switched to WAR. Anyone who likes fantasy, leveling up, and PvP should consider doing the same. Even if you don’t normally like PvP, you will after playing WAR. We simply can’t recommend it enough.

Related Topics:

• Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning
• Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning
• Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning
• Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning
• Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning

I had a bit of a rough and tumble start with Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. That doesn’t mean you need someone to pass the salt so you can shake it all over this review, it just means that the game has things like typical launch-type obstacles, such as crash bugs, that affect a certain percentage of the population, and I fell into the wrong slice of the pie chart. Working past these issues, some of which seem to even have been resolved in the past couple of days, I’m finding a lot to like about Mythic’s new MMO.

Love Your Job

Warhammer is about a war. No kidding! The Order faction consists of the Empire (humans), High Elves, and Dwarves, and on the flipside lies Destruction, composed of Greenskins (Goblins and Orcs), Dark Elves, and Chaos. The careers are all tied to race, so it’s more important to decide what your job will be than what you want to look like.

Maybe you want to be a Witch Hunter. I mean, you get a gun and the ability to pile up accusations until an execution move becomes available, and who doesn’t want to follow the mastery Path of “Confession?” Actually, I spent most of my time with a Marauder, whose arm shapeshifts as needed, although the Brutality sword-like appendage seemed to rock the hardest, with its Convulsive Slashing move that just tears up your target.

From level 11 you start gaining mastery points with which you specialize your career. For instance, I started up the Path of Brutality which not only improves all the moves specifically using the Brutality-shaped arm, but eventually unlocks new moves and passive career tactics you can slot to increase your effectiveness. High Elf Archmages who not only heal, but shoot lasers out of their eyes, Goblin Squig Herders who attack at range while commanding one ugly-looking pet monster—I wasn’t able to try every career, but the fact that I wish I could have says a lot.
RvR Puts Hair On Your Chest

Of course there are plenty normal MMO quests (Kill wolves, find this dude, collect mushrooms…) but you can play any game for those. If you’re coming to Warhammer, you’re coming for the Realm vs. Realm and the Public Quests. The Realm vs. Realm (or you could say, “epic PvP” with plural Ps) comes in many varieties from open RvR servers to zones within a “core” server, to specific instanced missions called Scenarios. Scenarios are great because they last just fifteen minutes, you get set up with a group as you arrive, and you can zap straight to one from anywhere.

In the upper right hand corner of the screen, near your mini-map (with handy red blotches that designate quest objectives), there is a button to queue for a Scenario. Once you sign up, you can just forget about it and quest, craft, or whatever. When the Scenario resets and slots open up, a window pops up to let you know and you can warp from the spot you stand to battle it out against the opposing faction. Obviously noobs will be overwhelmed in these situations, but it’s only fifteen minutes and you respawn easily in the zone to just keep hacking away. There are also quest objectives for killing members of the opposing faction, and you get experience just for finishing the encounter. Then, of course, there’s the added bonus that even if you managed to kill just one guy, it still helps your realm in the overall battle.

Unfortunately, that vague knowledge is as close as we got to the huge scale that the war ends up taking. The highly anticipated sieges of “living cities” (that are more or less prosperous depending on how your faction is doing) are for those a bit closer to the 40 level cap.

PQ For Me And You

More interesting than RvR (for me, at least) are the Public Quests. Here’s an example: I’m sent to kill some Annoying Squigs on a quest (with Squiggle, my Squig Herder). When I arrive at the killing field, the game tells me that the area also happens to be a Public Quest called Ugrog’s Rage (Oh, that giant troll thing!) where the first objective is killing quite of few of the buggers. I notice another player in the area, and invite them to a party.

Parties are automatically labeled as open, and in the upper left there is an icon you can click at any time to see what parties are available, how far they are from you, and what they are doing. Everyone in the area knows we’re here doing this PQ, and we can keep inviting people, too. Even players not in our party (or eventual warband, if enough show up—that’s a group of up to four parties) are helping the cause.

Next we have to collect Ugrog some beer kegs, but there are still enemies to deal with as well. Finally, once he’s good and boozed up he’ll bust down the door to this dwarven fortress and the bosses first send minions charging, before finally running out themselves.

Most PQs seem to have three stages, and when it’s over you get a loot drop (or not, if there were a lot of people involved) depending on how well you participated. The drop is a grab bag where you get to choose one item, and there is always something you can use, whether it’s armor or a crafting material. If you help out a lot, you also get tons of influence (points—a bar that fills for each chapter of the story) and are able to pick up influence rewards from the rally master in town.

I love PQs. It’s a great excuse to get a party together and once you have one you can just roam the zone from PQ to PQ. Or you can run one a few times in a row if it’s crowded, since the more consecutive attempts you put in, the higher your roll modifier bonus will be.

I Made This For You

Gathering and Crafting skills are acquired in the chapter 2 zones for each race. Of the four gathering skills, Cultivating is definitely the most compelling, since instead of just picking over corpses or breaking down unwanted gear into magical essences, you’re growing seeds. The process starts by opening the Cultivating window and choosing a plot. You place a seed and then add soil, water, and nutrients as a timer runs down. I didn’t get far enough to see what sort of effect upgrading your soil types and watering cans would have, but you definitely run into higher quality ingredients as you go (or if you buy them from a Scavenger.)

So far there are two crafting systems in the game, one for making potions and one for making talismans. Talismans seem more difficult due to the rarer ingredients required, whereas many potion ingredients are readily available through butchery or cultivating. For that reason, I spent a lot more time with my Apothecary characters.

To make a potion you need a container, a main ingredient, and supporting ingredients for stabilization and added effects. For instance, you can turn regular green healing potion into pink healing-over-time by adding an ingredient that increases the duration of a potion’s effects.

Overall, I found myself actually enjoying crafting, for once. Even though I made way more potions than I really needed, the more active systems made the whole process more satisfying.

Bottom Line Time

I haven’t said much about the Tome of Knowledge yet, but that’s because I personally didn’t find it very interesting. It’s basically a cross between a fantasy novel and an encyclopedia of your progress, which is great if you’re super into Warhammer, but you can tell the designers don’t even expect people to read all the quest text–the dialogue is in a rusty red color as opposed to the sharp black of the actual directions—so to include all this extra reading material is either a huge waste of time or a way to show the true fans how much they are loved. I guess we’ll go with the latter, but it would be interesting to see what percentage of players reads every entry.

As far as audio/video goes, you’ll want to run WAR with more than minimum specs, obviously, for the ultimate RvR experience. It’s a pretty game, and less cartoony than World of Warcraft while still maintaining a clearly fantasy style. The main theme is hummable while you’re waiting for the game to load–especially if your server is full; the game is definitely popular.

My biggest complaint, aside from the crashes that made me want to just quit completely, is the lack of official forums. I don’t want to be part of a community, I want to be part of the community. Yes, you can report bugs in-game, but it still just puzzles me that Mythic doesn’t run their own forums rather than check-up on fan sites.

WAR is probably going to be a really awesome game. The deciding factor for each player is not going to be whether you are into Warhammer, but rather whether you like PvP/RvR. That said, Public Quests are some of the most fun I’ve had in PvE, and, as I mentioned, crafting feels a lot more like an alternate activity than just something else to grind. An important test will be what happens to the population when Wrath of the Lich King launches in November, but as of right now (assuming they really have licked the random crashing bugs) WAR is the MMO place to be, so roll yourself a char and bring on da WAAAGH

Related Topics:

• Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (PC)
• Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (PC)
• Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (PC)
• Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (PC)
• Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (PC)

Some time ago, the developers at Mythic Entertainment began working on a crazy dream. They would take the best portion of Dark Age of Camelot — the realm vs. realm combat — and marry it to the fantasy setting of a beloved tabletop game, Warhammer. They were gambling that a game that focused on one particular gameplay dynamic and built all of its systems around that dynamic would be a fun and exciting experience for millions of MMO gamers. Fast forward a few years through some rocky development woes (including numerous product delays and cut content) and the dream is finally a reality. And while there are certainly issues that need to be dealt with, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning has hit the ground running with one of the best MMO experiences we’ve had in a long time.

War is Everywhere

There are individual elements of Warhammer Online that merit praise, but the game’s greatest achievement is actually the integration of its PvP, RvR and PvE experiences into a consistent whole. The “meta-game” of Warhammer Online is the constant state of war between Order (Dwarfs, High Elves, Empire humans) and Destruction (Greenskins, Dark Elves, Chaos humans) to dominate enough of the game’s landscape to open the enemy’s capital city to looting and pillaging. Everything in the game from basic quests against NPC mobs to instanced PvP battles called “scenarios” to open-world RvR struggles over fortresses in the middle of the landscape all contribute in various ways to that struggle. Even better, players are involved in it from the first moment their level one character appears in the world until their level 40 character goes on their first city raid. Mythic has essentially dropped the early-game “leveling process” in favor of an MMO that’s pretty much all “endgame.”

In Warhammer Online this sense that “war is everywhere” comes through in myriad ways. The graphics do a great job bringing the world of Warhammer to life in ways both gross and subtle. The game’s opening zones, for example, are filled with atmospheric details that throw you into the Warhammer mindset immediately. The Empire opening area takes place during a full-fledged Chaos assault on a small town filled with explosions and cannon fire. As the player works his or her way through the world, there’s always something beyond just NPC mobs to indicate the war, whether it be as big as a burning windmill or the old bone fragments that litter the ground.

The frenzied and chaotic atmosphere is enhanced by some exceptional landscape design. The game’s zones are a riot of broken terrain, unscalable ridges and dangerous drops. While the actual land area is fairly small as MMOs go, every inch of it is stuffed with mobs, towns, public quests, RvR zones, points of interest and visual obstructions that block line-of-sight. This makes travelling anyplace without getting attacked by mobs or other players very difficult and pulls players in a dozen different directions at once because there’s always something interesting to do or somewhere interesting to explore. It also ensures that when players do fight, it’s always on a landscape that adds to the excitement of the battle.

The World at WAR

Gameplay in Warhammer Online proceeds along two basic tracks — the PvE and the PvP/RvR areas. Of the two, it’s the PvE zone that initially comes off as the less impressive. When considered by itself, it doesn’t beat the often-elaborate scenarios offered in a game like The Lord of the Rings Online, which is essentially built around a core of questing and storytelling. That, however, isn’t the purpose of Warhammer Online’s PvE content. The game’s PvE is instead designed to weave in and out of the PvP content and offer compelling group-based experiences without the pressure of PvP combat. This it does exceptionally well.

The primary vehicle for this kind of experience are the public quests. PQs are geographically bounded multi-stage world events that everyone within its region can contribute to. Once the event is over, loot drops are rolled for with bonuses going to those who contributed the most. They’re also a brilliant innovation, one that we wouldn’t be surprised to see other MMOs copy in the near future. They offer all the challenge of a group-oriented dungeon and (in later stages) raid-level challenges in short 10- or 15-minute intervals without all the tedious looking for group or the huge time commitment such content usually entails. On Open RvR servers they become even more enjoyable. At least one competitive PQ in the Dwarf/Greenskin zone (where players compete to kill 100 NPCs from the other side) has become an insanely fun kill-zone that’s now a must-stop as players level through the content.
As players progress through the game, a fascinating melding of PvE and PvP content begins to occur. Certain PvE quests will send players into PvP “lakes” to complete objectives that have nothing to do with fighting other players. Others will offer players in PvE zones opposing PQ objectives conveniently located right next to PvP areas where players can slip over and try to kill one another when taunting and interference aren’t enough. In higher-level PvP zones, capturing objectives entails dealing with very powerful NPCs that require raid-level coordination to take down. City sieges — the very goal of the game — are the ultimate fusion of the two. Once a city siege begins, players will have to compete in PvP events to unlock a whole instanced capital loaded with PvE content ranging from low-level quests to loot and kill regular citizens to high-level dungeons and huge raid-level bosses that will take the resources of a guild to destroy.

The Enemy of My Enemy is my Enemy

It doesn’t take much play time before the PvP heart of Warhammer Online becomes clear. Scenario-based PvP is available from the instant a player logs into the game. All a player has to do is click the “Join Scenario” button on the UI anywhere in the world and they queue up. When in a scenario, characters will be leveled to the tier mean. They won’t be given any extra skills, which means that very low-level characters will still be at a slight disadvantage, but the field will be more or less even and everyone feels useful. Scenarios run the gamut from simple timed slaughterfests for points to take-and-hold actions to king-of-the-hill games to capture the flag. As players level, they’ll be asked to take part in more elaborate scenarios that will require more coordination and planning but even the simplest (Tier One) scenarios in the game offer a huge variety of play styles and a host of ingenious play mechanics.

The other part of Warhammer Online’s PvP system is the Realm vs. Realm combat. This consists of PvP “lakes” within larger PvE zones (one for each side) that surround it. In these areas are a series of objectives such as castles or points of interest that are guarded by NPCs that can be captured by players to control the zone. This is easily the game’s biggest individual attraction. First, it offers a ton of balanced PvP combat confined to limited areas under specific rule sets and avoids the annoying “ganking” phenomenon (for those who want it, Mythic has created a number of “Open RvR” servers). Second, these RvR lakes are amazingly fun. In a couple of days’ worth of battles we accumulated more stories of brilliant assaults, sneak attacks, dirty tricks, desperate last stands and amazingly funny moments than in a year of another MMOs PvP. If the greatest piece of content in an MMO is other people, Warhammer Online offers an endless variety of PvP “content” to explore.

Unfortunately, all of this PvP combat comes at a price — fairly steep system requirements. While lag, stutter and chug are usually not a problem at the game’s lower levels, in larger battles with dozens of players it’s very possible players without a high-end system will see their game slow down. We never had a problem so bad it made the game unplayable, but even on our highest-end machines we had to tone down the graphics in some of the larger fights. That may turn off some gamers who were looking forward to the game but may not wish to upgrade their systems — especially that segment that’s been playing nothing but World of Warcraft for the past four years without an upgrade.

Hell is Other People

The biggest irony of Warhammer Online is that its greatest strength is also its biggest weakness — the reliance on other people. The vast majority of the game’s content, especially its meta-game, requires an active and enthusiastic player-base committed to getting to the city sieges. In the game’s opening days as everybody levels up and the game still exudes that “new game smell,” that isn’t a problem. Even in these first days, however, we’ve found that there are inconveniently located PQs that are virtually abandoned. We’re concerned that as the player base ages, these areas may be abandoned, making the trip to level 40 the grind that Mythic worked so hard to avoid.

Fortunately, Mythic is aware of this and put systems in place to try to stem it. Since every zone in the game contributes to the push-pull city-raiding meta-game, there is certainly an incentive for players to level alts and leave them at specific levels in order to be able to switch to different content tiers when the situation requires it. The game also offers a “Tome of Knowledge” that in itself is a huge piece of content. The Tome is combination achievement/kill-counter system that tracks virtually every aspect of gameplay. There’s a kill counter for every type of creature (and player) in the game, exploration unlocks for finding specific locations, well-written story snippets as a reward for following the PvE questlines, titles, new skills and much much more. In fact, there’s even a whole host of silly and secret achievements in the Tome such as clicking on your own character 100 times, fighting while naked or just adding five players to your friends list.
Xbox Live’s achievement system proved some time ago that people will go to incredible lengths for a score beside their name and a few virtual medals. The developers at Mythic took that lesson and ran with it. There will certainly be a large contingent of players who make it a goal to unlock everything in the Tome. For everyone else, the Tome is a sort of goad to experience everything in the game. It’s worth playing that PvP scenario one more time to finish an obscure Tome unlock. It’s worth going through low-level PvE quest lines in the other races’ areas and doing public quests that one has outleveled just to get the unlocks. More than that, the Tome is just one of a host of meters to fill and counters to click and trophies to go for. The game’s guild system treats guilds almost like players with their own system of levels and bonuses and prizes that players can work to unlock. There’s an entire separate system of PvP leveling that unlocks access to high-level loot. One of the key benefits of all this is it keeps players circulating throughout the world and participating in all of its content.

Greenskins in the Woodpile

Despite all the well-deserved praise, Warhammer Online is not without its problems. While the game seems to have avoided the big technical nightmare of unstable servers, there’s a definite danger of population imbalance. As players come on board, there seems to be a pronounced predilection for the Destruction side. While the developers at Mythic have taken steps to ameliorate this, the resulting low population caps on servers have contributed to long wait times for scenarios and 10- to 20-minute waits to log in at peak hours. Since balanced populations fighting each other are the key to this game — much more so than in World of Warcraft, which continues to wrestle with this issue four years after launch — this is something that needs to be carefully monitored and controlled as the game moves forward.

There’s also a host of smaller problems, though none of them rise to more than a small level of annoyance. Players in scenarios can “AFK” their way through, stealing experience and renown points they don’t deserve. There’s a weird graphic bug that will lock an avatar into one animation cycle (though you can still play the game). The crafting is confusing and feels like an afterthought. The UI, while quite good, could use a few now-common elements like the ability to hot-link items and abilities in chat. Considering how important player coordination is in higher-level PvP, the game could really use some type of built-in voice chat system. Some of the terrain in the scenarios and the PvP lakes could use some tweaking, as their proximity to spawn points sometimes gives an advantage to one side while the other faction faces an incredibly long post-death trek.

In the end, though, all of the problems, even the most serious one of lag in heavy player combat, are ultimately fixable. Warhammer Online has had the smoothest, most complete MMO launch we’ve ever seen. Game balance and other elements of the game need tweaking but they’re all there, they all work and most importantly, they’re all fun. This is a game that has 20 separate classes and while some may be overpowered or underpowered, none of them are boring to play. The game comes loaded with PvP and PvE content that — balance issues notwithstanding — is as good as or much better than that of any other MMO on the market. Warhammer Online is the next great game of Player vs. Player and Realm vs. Realm content and we have the feeling that somewhere on the other side of reality, the Chaos god Tzeentch is smiling.

Related Topics:

• Warhammer Online : Age Of Reckoning
• Warhammer Online : Age Of Reckoning
• Warhammer Online : Age Of Reckoning
• Warhammer Online : Age Of Reckoning
• Warhammer Online : Age Of Reckoning

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning has finally been released and at a great time for many MMORPG players. If they finally tired of the fast click action of Age of Conan or their hundredth raid in World of Warcraft they now have a new rich and exciting game to play, but there are two main points I have to stress before I go down with the actual review. First off, the game starts out slower then any MMO I can remember, even EVE Online and from my own experience and dealing with other players in game that was a bit of a turn off, but rest assured that slow experience is a good thing while you learn the ropes and when you are a couple of hours in to the game the actual game picks up dramatically in its overall pace and fun. The other point is the game maxes out at level 40 and while during the beta many people seemed to complain about that pointing out other MMORPG’s have level caps at 60, 80 or even 100 levels, you can not compare Warhammer’s level system to theirs because I found that by the time I hit level 15 in Warhammer I actually had a longer and deeper playing experience then I ever had in World of Warcraft. When I topped out in World of Warcraft (all too quickly) and then I maxed out in Age of Conan (again so very fast) it was fun at first to do so but not rewarding or worthwhile, so what I am saying is do not let the level cap lead you to believe the game is short and sweet, when in fact it is long with plenty of replay value.

The overall premise of Warhammer Online Age of Reckoning or WAR is a great war has broken out everywhere across the land and it is time for you to declare your allegiance and join hundreds of thousands (maybe millions eventually) of other players on the many Realm versus Realm (RvR) and Player versus Player (PvP) battlefields in Age of Reckoning and turn the tide of war for your side. Warhammer is a universe of two distinct sides with the Armies of Order (Dwarfs, High Elves and the Empire) and the Armies of Destruction (Greenskins, Dark Elves and Chaos). These two sides will invade each others land, lay siege to impressive fortresses and sack each others cities. Wielding destructive magic and powerful weapons you can fight solo or with your fiends as you explore the world, discover the secrets to the Tome of Knowledge and help lead your side to victory.

So far during beta and the first few weeks of release, it appears the side of Destruction is getting the preferential treatment in terms of numbers on many servers. Both sides are excellent and fun to play but I guess being bad is the fan favorite. Finding which server to join is important and depending on your play style, this will determine how successful you are in Realm versus Realm. But just do not pick Destruction because they look cool, the Armies of Order have their own charm.

Gameplay

Your career in Warhammer Online is just as important as any other MMORPG, especially when you look at your play style, what your potential guild may need and who is most needed in everyday groups. There are many careers to choose from and they are based on Race and sometimes the sex of the character, for instance a Witch Elf can only be female. The careers in the game so far include…

Chaos Career
Chosen – Chaotic Master Tank
Marauder – Melee Damage Masters
Zealot – Healer Caster
Magus – Ranged Damage Dealer

Empire
Warrior Priest – Melee Healer
Witch Hunter – Melee Damage Dealer
Bright Wizard – Ranged Damage Dealer

Dark Elves Careers
Witch Elves – Melee Damage Dealers
Disciple of Khaine – Healer Caster
Sorceress – Ranged Damage Dealer

High Elves Careers
Shadow Warrior – Ranged Damage Dealer
Swordmaster – Graceful Tank
Archmage – Healer and Loremaster
White Lion – Melee and Pet class

Greenskin Career
Black Orc – Heavy Tank
Shaman – Healer and Caster
Squiq Herder – Ranged attack and Pet class

Dwarf Careers
Iron Breaker – Defensive based Tank
Engineer – Shooter/Hybrid
Rune Priest – Healer and Buffer

Every class on each side between Destruction and Order has their direct opposite in some way. This is because the main part of the game is Player versus Player in a Realm versus Realm environment. Now if you are new to the RvR concept, do not worry since it is fairly straight forward and a concept which was pioneered by Mythic in their earlier MMORPG, Dark Age of Camelot. The easiest way to describe the game is us versus them or in very simple terms good versus evil, but if you do not like to bash other players heads open you can solo or even just do the Player versus Environment (PvE) side of things with other groups, the game does not force you in one direction or the other. But you will miss out on some rather fun gaming by not competing in the RvR side of things and I am not a big fan of PvP in many MMORPG’s period so that is saying something.

To play the RvR side of things is fairly straight forward, so you just enter your self into the queue and very quickly you will enter the fray, transported from where ever you are. Placed into a group if you are solo or entering the actual battle with your group you engage the other side for control of specific areas. Fighting until the actual goal is reached when you win or lose the encounter. You will gain renown points which add to the overall gaming experience and can be used to unlock titles and more.

Warhammer Online is more of a traditional MMORPG then the recently released action based MMO Age of Conan, but with that “traditional” label Warhammer is also one of the most polished MMORPG’s gameplay wise at launch, just like the Lord of the Rings Online was for polish and stability. The basic gameplay is there with the auto-attack feature we know from many games and then clicking off abilities or spells as we need to cast them. Down time has been almost eliminated with your character regaining their health and action points (action points are used in combat for abilities and spells) very quickly so you can always be on the offensive if you need to be and not sitting back waiting for your health to regenerate or your action points aka mana to be restored.

WAR uses a book called the Tome of Knowledge which is basically the book which knows everything about you from your kills, what you have unlocked, how long you have played and much more. This book is handy and very easy to find your way through via the tab system on the left side of the Tome. What I enjoyed most was seeing how many kills I had for specific monsters (I like to know that for some reason) and what of the History and Lore I had unlocked and seen. As a heavy duty Role Player this was a very welcome addition.

Quests are plentiful and easy to do for many reasons, the first being they are easy to find as in most current MMORPG’s with a green book above the head of the person and where you are to do the actual quest is shown on your map, handy and while this is basically hand holding, it allows the player to level and find their way around easily and jump on to more important things such as RvR battles and crafting.

Public quests are by far the most fun I have had in the actual game, since you will join forces with other adventurers to reach certain goals for each actual public quest. Usually killing X number of baddies and doing something else very specific. One of the best quests I have seen so far was when a giant spawn and ran towards the public quest, knocking down trees and making a general nuisance of himself. Of course after he is killed, or the quest is finished, everyone who competed in the fight rolls for a chance to win some loot. Not everyone will win and bonuses on the roll are given by your overall contribution in the battle, but you can redo the fights more then once which is handy because the loot is nice.

As you compete in the public quests you win points which are put towards items key NPC’s will offer you, from potions, equipment, gear and more. This is one of the better ways to get your self some excellent gear for your level. It is too bad though you can only get one item out of each of the three prize tiers.

Crafting is extremely important to any MMO player worth their salt, but if the crafting system is bad, what is the use of it. Well I have great news for those of us who love to craft and can sink dozens of hours at a time hunting for regents and experimenting, we have a solid crafting system which is easy to use, actually looks good and crafting per se is not some mindless endeavor where you sit back and watch a progress bar before clicking ’remake’. Of course I never had a chance to try them all, but I plan on at least giving each one a decent go.

Warhammer Online is a strong, deep MMORPG with a ton of features that would take too long to get into, but is well worth experiencing the gameplay on many levels.

Graphics

Graphically Warhammer Online is very good and it does not push your graphics card or your average computer to its limits by any means. This is a good thing for those gamers with older systems, those with high end video cards who may be expecting something closer to Age of Conan’s or some other higher end graphic game, will find the graphics less then pleasing. At first I will honestly admit I was disappointed in the overall graphics, but after seeing my third or fourth major public quest with three or four full groups running around and fighting the various enemies who were around, I began to prefer seeing the very high frame rate, with the graphics quality maxed out and fifty plus player characters engaged in battles with at least that many mobs. Not once in this game has the game had any sort of video lag, or lag of any kind and that is impressive on many levels.

One issue with the overall graphics that I have is until you reach the mid-range levels you will see copies of yourself over and over again, in my very first group during the beta, there were two other characters who had the exact same look as I did and even after several quests, we still looked the same after adding a few items to our armor. Do not let this worry you though as you do get higher, your personal touches to the character begin to show and the game is more about Realm versus Realm combat then dressing up your character, the fashion show can happen later on with updates and hopefully many expansions.

Level design wise the world is very well done and for once it appears a MMORPG developer did not hit the “Create Random World” button, do some slight tweaking and run with it. Each area has this personal touch to it, almost to the point it would seem a separate team was in charge of each area and they did not sit back and borrow from each other. There are some creatively designed areas with impressive forests, temples and dungeons and with each starting area this is a sign of what is to come later on from the Elven forests to the dying lands of Chaos.

Monsters, demons, fairies, dragons and other creatures you will fight and hopefully slay with others are very well designed, animated and textured. Every area in the game, especially the earlier levels has plenty of variety of monsters for you to see and fight. I was most surprised by seeing a dragon early on while playing my Witch Elf who are amazing fast damage dealers and entering a Warband and destroying the beast in one of the early public quests, but that is just a piece of what is to come.

The special effects are beyond excellent, especially if you are a caster such as a Bright Wizard and light the world around you on fire. Every class has some interesting and ’cool’ effects to their special attacks and abilities and it never gets old building up your characters special ability and releasing it in some epic attack and devastating the enemy ranks.

Finally we have a game out of the box (at least one that I can remember) that has almost a complete, easy to use user interface editor, with this you can easily move everything around, change sizes and more from inside the main game with out any hassles, shutting down or issues of any type.

Audio

Dramatic music and deep environmental audio is the core of Warhammer Online’s audio library. Every location, dungeon, battlefield and town has a strong feel to it, which is driven by what you see and hear and if the audio was not as strong as it is, the overall game would not be the game of grand adventures which Warhammer is known for. Even listening to the music at the server select or character selection screen has this range of hope and balance to dark and chaotic battle chords. Audio wise Mythic has done a fantastic job on Warhammer.

Non-Playable characters are a chatty bunch in the game, but unfortunately they do not have a voice track for many of them, but what voice work we do hear in the game from the battle cries, to giants getting angry are excellent and what is most surprising these voices have the correct level of emotion needed for what they are saying and based on their characters race. A Greenskin Shaman sounds like you would expect as does the high and mighty elves. This should not shock me but so many MMORPG’s often fail to go that extra step with voice over work and have everyone sound the same from Orc to Troll to bar wench.

Value

I would expect most players will stick with one side or the other in terms of overall faction loyalty in the game because that is what they prefer, basically Order (good guys) and Destruction (bad guys) and in many cases this would limit them to just a couple of classes, but in WAR they have many classes (careers) with 10 on each side and we can assume more will come with future updates and expansions. So basically the amount of value is there, especially with how long it takes the average player to see the end game and just because you have seen the end game, it does not mean you have done everything you need to do.

Bottom Line

If you are a Warhammer fan in any form (and who isn’t?), this is your first chance to play in the epic and fantastic world we have only seen in table top and the odd RTS before, so it is a must buy. For MMORPG fans and RPG fans this is also a must buy, for the simple reason it has many of the strengths of games like World of Warcraft and Everquest 2, but has also taken from its spiritual predecessor Dark Age of Camelot (best PvP Fantasy MMO of all time) to create a wonderful gaming experience for the PvP/RvR and the PvE player.

— Tested on –
Windows Vista Ultimate 6.0 Service Pack 1
AMD Phenom 9500 Quad-Core Processor (4 CPUS) 2.2 Ghz
4 Gig Ram
1 Gig NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GX2
1680 x 1050 (32 bit) 60Hz
Merc Stealth Keyboard
Microsoft Trackball
Related Topics:

• Warhammer Online : Age Of Reckoning
• Warhammer Online : Age Of Reckoning
• Warhammer Online : Age Of Reckoning
• Warhammer Online : Age Of Reckoning
• Warhammer Online : Age Of Reckoning

Contribution to the public quest isn’t just calculated by damage done either, but by healing and group support through spells and abilities. All these elements make public quests both fun and easy to take part in. However, the term public quest does tend to infer that players will need each other to complete them, so problems could occur when the lower-tiered public quests have no players around to do them. Ultimately, as time passes, this design flaw will impact the guild-less player, causing them to miss out on potentially better items and, on a more lofty level, game content. Currently, there isn’t a problem because there is no shortage of lower-ranked players, but tweaks will most definitely need to be made later on.

Warhammer Online’s PvP elements are a definite ray of Elven sunshine. Mythic has divided its PvP priorities into two forms: Scenarios and Open-world RvR. Scenarios are played like instanced team vs. team matches between Order and Destruction. Players can join scenarios as easily as clicking a button on the HUD. Groups of players that have banded together also have the option of joining and playing scenarios together.

Once inside the scenarios, players can expect standard modes of gameplay. Capture the flag and capturing and defending control points are just a few of the game modes. There are some additional ones that add a twist here and there, but it isn’t anything veteran gamers haven’t seen or played before. When players select to join a scenario, they are placed in a queue, so while the game is preparing a scenario, players can continue to go about their business. Once the scenario is ready, players can join and are instantly loaded into it. Once the scenario is finished, the game places the players back where they were within the game world, allowing them to pick up where they left off. For once, these out-of-world zones aren’t tedious or pointless to play, and those who would normally find them to be a waste will catch themselves actually having fun.

Open-world RvR plays out in predetermined areas of each map and there are no multiple instances of the same thing. Battlefield objectives are scattered throughout these contested areas. Each tier has two maps in it, each with its own set of objectives. When one realm captures and holds all those objectives, bonuses are given to the players of that realm and the game acknowledges their dominance. Eventually, Mythic’s idea leads to one realm being able to capture and hold all the objectives of each tier until the end, which results in the siege of the other realm’s capital city.

Players will earn points for two different ranks, one is their overall rank and the other is their Renown Rank. Earning renown is a matter of participating in PvP, whether it’s scenarios or open-world RvR. As players earn renown points and ranks, they get access to renown abilities, which can be used to help their characters become more powerful. Of course, the issue of low-level player populations cannot be ignored. How will the balance be impacted when there aren’t any players left in the early tiers of the game?

Warhammer Online makes it so everything matters and contributes to character or guild progression. Players unlock abilities and special awards for killing certain numbers of specific types of enemies, for exploring uncharted corners of the maps, and for doing things that are normally mundane. The brilliance of this system is that MMOs tend to be reward-heavy games anyway, so why not make everything the players do a form of progression. For instance, killing 100 wolves could result in an unlock that gives a special cape or armor piece.

There are a lot of features that make up Warhammer Online. Most of those features aren’t anything veterans of the genre don’t already know and understand. And, there are a complement of bugs and glitches that accompany this giant, but the core gameplay is solid. Warhammer Online isn’t trying to reach a specific audience either, regardless of Mythic’s original intention. Instead, it seems to be creating a whole new audience, turning and redefining players’ expectations and behaviors. If MMOs are what you enjoy, Warhammer Online is one of the best on the market. It may not have a new combat system built from the ground up, or flashy next-generation graphics, but its success without those two elements is a feat in its own right.

By Derek Hidey
CCC Freelance Writer

Related Topics:

• Play Logs: Week six of Warhammer Online (PC)
• Play Logs: Week six of Warhammer Online (PC)
• Play Logs: Week six of Warhammer Online (PC)
• Play Logs: Week six of Warhammer Online (PC)
• Play Logs: Week six of Warhammer Online (PC)