This article ignores story and lore intentionally. There are no spoilers below.
Screw the intro. Lets just launch into this.
For some perspective, my MMO background starts in some MUD somewhere when I was an AOL user in middle school. I dabbled in Ultima Online as well in high school, but I didn’t play Everquest at all. The first MMO I really sunk time into was Final Fantasy XI. And I sunk way to much time into it, though I’ve made a number of lasting friendships for which it will always be an important game for me. After that I moved onto WoW, and from there I’ve dabbled in various MMOs through the past few years. The MMOs which I still consider myself ‘active’ in are World of Warcraft and Guild Wars, though I am a very casual player.
For a casual player of MMOs, Warhammer may not be in their field of view as much as it should. I personally didn’t follow the project except in a very cursory way, and in fact I didn’t apply for the beta at any stage until recently when I placed a pre-order for the express purpose of giving it a go and writing this post. Warhammer itself is not something I ever seriously considered getting into, both due to money issues and (to be honest) the typical Warhammer player in my experience tends to be the kind of gamer I dislike (but that is a subject for another rant).
I don’t have an issue with the setting. I find both the fantasy and sci-fi variants interesting, and I enjoy the very gritty-low fantasy feel. I also definitely respect the setting as being pretty much the basis for Warcraft initially, and is in some ways directly responsible for however many millions of players are stomping around Azeroth right now. With that in mind, and a certain amount of curiosity as both a gamer and MMO enthusiast I woke up Sunday morning to give it a go.
As I logged into the game I had no real knowledge of any of the classes. I went with the time honored tradition of what looked the coolest. I ended up as a Witch Elf (Destruction), and started poking around. I did a few quests and I immediately noticed the combat as being a lot slower than I’ve gotten used to, which initially turned me off a bit. Early on, when you only have a few skills, it is a little frustrating to not be able to use them quickly, but taking into account the abilities you will get through the levels, it seemed like a fairly wise decision, and will most likely make PvP a little more manageable. During my time as a Witch elf, I did a couple of the early quest nodes and joined an RvR scenario as well. The proved to be quite entertaining, and the short (15 minute) time was perfect. It also helped that we won.
After that I decided to give Order a try, specifically the Witch Hunter, which had caught my eye in several pieces of artwork and in promotional screenshots. I enjoyed the initial quest progression a lot more, and I found the special mechanic really entertaining, though not very interesting perhaps in terms of gameplay (attacks cause Accusations, which you use to pass a Judgement. Think a WoW Rogue’s combo points and finishers, a basic mechanic shared with several other classes). So with pistol and rapier in tow I started schlepping around Nordland, rallying villagers, stabbing minions of Chaos, and using siege equipment to blast mages from afar. Eventually it started to get a little dull, and then I stumbled into my first Public Quest.
I’ll tell you straight up. Public Quests are the primary reason I’m considering purchasing this game at retail. As someone who doesn’t always have a lot of time to sink into an MMO, being able to not only jump into a quest, but have it also yield useful rewards and an epic experience is fantastic. I found myself repeating them to not only acquire my faction rewards, but just to improve my personal performance, as the quests reports damage dealt at the end of the entire scenario, and the top contributors get better rewards. The quests I tried involved protecting a farmstead from Chaos battalions and eventually an ogre who arrived on the scene after knocking down some trees, battling mages and their summoned horrors around a flaming windmill, and hunting down chaos marauders in some ruins. I think the key to their success is that not only are they fast, but they have their own story that fits into the lore, and they tend to be great set pieces. When that ogre arrived, knocking down trees, and the villagers fled leaving us to slay the monster, it was a fantastic moment, and if Mythic delivers more of them at frequent intervals throughout the experience curve, this game really should be a no-brainer for a lot of people.
My concerns for the game at this point are fairly minimal. I’m fairly certain that the level grind will be interesting the whole way through with liberal sprinklings of PQs throughout, and the occasional RvR scenario (which, by the way, awards a little bit of EXP). My only concern come from the endgame. Obviously I’m not at a place where I could discuss this with any real knowledge, but I worry that unless the RvR scenarios and gameplay aren’t rewarding are varied enough the game might not have as much longevity as it should have. That being said, Dark Age of Camelot didn’t have that issue, so I have faith that Mythic will keep the content flowing and keep the battles interesting. As for myself, I think I will continue into the retail release and see how it goes. For now, color me optimistic. I’m going to spend some more time with the beta this week, and if I find anything else worth discussing I’ll be sure to append it here.
