WAR! What it has over WoW and Why it shouldn't be Ignored!

As many of you guys know I have never been a big PC gamer, in fact I often grudge that PC's get a better version of a console release a couple months after they come out. However, for some reason I just found myself drawn to Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. I mean it is true that I have had an on again, off again relationship with the original tabletop game before and a particular fondness for the lore of the game.

After quickly tearing through the box and anxiously waiting out the hour and a half install, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I had not invested in just another WoW clone. What I found was a wonderful commitment to the lore of the game on both story driven and game play driven levels. What does this mean? An overwhelming importance and emphasis on player versus player combat and a curious form of instancing called public quests.

Perhaps the best part of WAR's RvR play is the fact that you actually level because of it. In fact it is one of the easiest ways to level, for example, if you walk into an open RvR area in the game and kill an opposing player then you get experience comparable to what you would earn in an entire quest. On top of that, in a battleground you get a measure of experience for every kill committed by your party and then 5000 experience were your faction to win the instance.

Follow me here because this is where a lot of WoW players are going to get pissed. This means the total and final destruction of the idea of a permanent twink. This is perhaps one of my favorite parts of WAR. I mean every WoW player has at one point felt overwhelming frustration of getting hopelessly owned by twinks on every tier of PvP. I know I never reached 70 so I never had the funds to make a twink and on principle I tried not to. I mean I hated having my hard earned instance gear that I rightfully won in the dice roll be totally out performed by someone who just bought theirs from the auction house. I mean we all know there will be people who use the funds of their high levels to give a head start to their low levels, but it won't last forever. This also solved the problem I had personally with getting no real sense of accomplishment from playing battle grounds on WoW. There were a few quests that could net you some experience but even less of those were repeating quests. With this simple addition WAR solved every problem I had with PvP in WoW.

Now to talk about those public quests I mentioned earlier. These are one of the cooler things WAR has set up to get people to play together. Each public quest is a multi-tiered quest that is static in location and resets every few minutes upon completion. Anyone can hop in and help at any time with any number of players, regardless of whether or no your in a party with fellow questers. These can often involve a little RvR and each goal achieved in the public quest adds to your "chapter completion" and gives you access to renown awards. The point of these chapters is that upon the completion of all chapters you are eligible to fight for a stake in the opposing capitol city and to serve in the defense of your own. I would love to talk about this more but I haven't reached that level yet so I am unable to speak on it at the current time. However, it is needless to say that these public quests are a delightful way to weave the WAR community together.

Another great part of WAR is the Book of Lore. The Book of Lore is an all encompassing canon script that can tell you more than you would ever want to know about the world of Warhammer Online. It's almost like they poured all the knowledge on Wikipedia posted by Games Workshop employees into a bottle, shook it up and put it into the game. It's another minor way to reward players as well. When you enter new areas, kill new enemies ect ect, you get a small or large amount of experience based on the importance of the discovery. It's a great support net to have when your solo questing.

On that note there isn't much to say on the part of solo questing as it largely the same as it is in WoW. There is a small downside in the fact that quest completion doesn't come with as much satisfaction as it does in WoW. This is largely due to the fact that so much emphasis is given to RvR that I think questing was left out a little in the go between. However, it is much more simple to form large parties beyond 5 man groups. Once your group has reached capacity you can select to form a warband thus increasing your capacity to 25 party members. These are helpful in raids, quests, public quests, and open RvR. I love the concept that if your having trouble taking on a public quest boss with 5 people, than why not overwhelm it with a 25 member party?

This brings us to the networking of WAR which is one of the few areas in which I think it is inferior to WoW. The friends list is clunky and doesn't provide a pop up when your friends come online and guilds have a much more shallow interface and as such they tried to implement a version of public quests almost in the guild. I don't really know the specifics on this feature so I won't speak of it as yet. However, this shortcoming is more than made up for in the total reward system in WAR. No matter what you do, your character is given some kind of reward for it. There are three forms of experience that you can gain. There is a morale system that gives you and your allies advantages in RvR and can disadvantage your opponents.

The point is people that WAr is the first majoy threat to the dominance of WoW in recent memory.

Can it dethrone WoW?

I don't think so.

Can it survive with a viable player population?

I hope so, because I am certainly enjoying it and I suggest other people do as well.

p.s The rest of the Halo Series is on the way, blame WAR.

-Ichi