WAR (Warhammer Online)

so, i played WAR on and off for the last 3 weeks, alternating sides, classes, and playstyles, i grinded, i crafted, i pvp'd and i explored. 

first, the good, the world itself is very pleasing to the eye, the graphics are good, and i did have alot of fun with the lore and exploration of things (yes, i took the time to read all those fresh enries into the journal).

i did not experience any lag, probably due to the fact my system is quite advanced compared to the usual user (8 gigs of RAM and a latest generation graphics card for starters really help games run smoother). while there are some very annoying bugs in the game (like the fact you can't really set your keybindings etc) they are in no way game breaking and i consider them to be more of an annoyance then anything.

however, there's also the bad. the game itself came as quite a bit of a disapointment for me in the end, mostly because the world outside scenarios is mostly dead, people hang around the warcramps in a certain chapter (and usually almost everyone at a certain level range hang out in the same scenario) and grind it 24/7. there hardly any RVR (unless you count the odd high level visiting lowbie areas in RVR realms to "show their might"), and trying to do a public quest is usually an invitation to fraustration as you discover that the 1-2 people who actually wondered into the area either have no clue what they are doing, or are here to do a quest that happens to be in the area and get out.
the crafting system in the game also leaves alot to be desired, the fact is that i found talisman making to be very costly, inefficient, and the added benefits from it very marginal, especially since apothecracy when compared to it is relativly cheap, and the health and stat potions and oils created from it actually proved useful for leveling (although again, it was simply a matter of using the materials i gained from scavanging instead of vendoring them).

the fact you cannot "stop" in the game, that is, you will level via pvp as well as pve, precludes any attempt at twinking a character at a certain level, and therefore most of the items you'll find before level 40 are either used or vendored (sometimes salvaged for materials), and there's little point in using the auction houses to sell them (i did manage to sell some items around the auction house, but that's more of a testimony to the fact some players have not grasped the simple fact you're better off leveling with renowned gear you can buy off the closest renown vendor in the appropriate chapter).

in conclusion, i do not believe this game can sustain itself as any more of a niche game in it's current preset, the decent scenario pvp offered at the moment will not sustain it over a decent multiplayer FPS. and i do hope mythic and EA will be able to take corrective measures soon to remedy most of the problems.

Thanks for the review mate.  One of these days I'm going to take the time and do my own.  At present I'm too busy enjoying my WAR experience to take the time.

I'll not try to argue you with your points as some behind me will.  Instead I'll say, come to Bechafen.  Come to Order on Bechafen and review that.  :)

I have four main gripes with the game...

1) The game is just not fun, the way to 40 is basically just one long bg-grind and the BG's are poorly made, unbalanced and not really intriguing enough. I'd take WSG in WoW anyday over these BG's. The fact that everyone groups at certain BG's limits the choices of BG's that you can use for leveling. The PvE content is fairly dead and uninteresting.

2) It RAPES the Warhammer lore

3) It's system demanding and even on a good system really looks no better than WoW, the world looks sloppily put together, animations are choppy - although the character skins are nice.

4) This game is no more RvR (which is basically a fancy and overused word for PvP from Mythic) than WoW, which is one of the most softcore and initially non-pvp oriented MMOs that I know of. I expected at least 3 different factions or at least something to make it stand out, only thing new about it is that you can level through PvP (Oh sorry, I meant 'RvR') and that turned out just to be a dull grind.

That being said, I think Mythic did some things right, for instance the blocking (making tanks alot more attractive in PvP) and the high toughness of the characters, making instant deaths in group PvP less common.

Good graphics? either your blind or I'm blind and cant find these graphics options that make it look good. I've said it before why make a game with 5 year old graphics when the game will still be going 7 or so years from now...doubt people will still have the same 5 year old computers in 2012...which makes me believe that eq2 and vanguard werent that wrong...I am interested in resubscribing to eq2 now simply because it dosent look too bad even for today... Lotro in my opinion got it perfect...WaR wont fail it just wont contend with Wow, 750k subscribers is around what AoC had at this stage and they lost half after the free month.. will say one thing though the tome of knowledge is one of the best features in a mmo, pity everything about pve is terrible and repetitive and the world just looks very cheap and nasty. War was the first mmo that I have lost interest in in less than a month, but I guess it just isnt for me.