MMORPG
Character
Monuments

Introduction
Well the time is finally here. On September 18th Warhammer Online (simply referred to as WAR), one of the most highly anticipated MMOs to be released in years was released for the masses. If, for some reason, you were hiding in a cave for the last year there is a quick tutorial on the basics of WAR HERE.

I was fortunate to have been brought in to the beta several months prior to this game's release. I saw the dramatic changes as this game went though closed beta to preview weekend and finally through open beta. The changes have been dramatic…a “You’d hardly recognize the place" makeover from where it was to where it now stands. Ive now been playing Warhammer exclusivly since release.

This article is about what to expect from Warhammer Online...a bit more than what you get from FAQs or boards, but an in depth look at my experience playing this game. I am not for or against WAR. Unlike the WoW vs. WAR rivalry you see on the boards, I honestly believe that both games will have substantial playerbases and will find future success. You will find that I talk and relate aspects of WAR to WoW. This is intentional. It is not because I believe WoW is the standard for MMOs, but it is a standard on which most MMO players have experience with and can relate to.

So, with that introduction, let’s begin.

Into the Game
Like a lot of things in this game, Mythic took a look at detail and learned from other game's mistakes. Doesn't take long from the time you click the icon to the time you get to the selection screen. The intro credits are quick and pleasantly painless ..basically “here is my logo, and here is a loud sound to go with my logo …NEXT!!". Soon your past the EULA (whos reads that anyways? ..I could have agreed to monthly urine screening and I wouldn't have known) and onto the server selection.

Server Selection
When you first start you will find that there are umpteen servers to chose from. These are listed initially by alphabetical order. However there is useful information about each server that can aid you in deciding what server you want to be a part of. The first and for most is server time zone. Its tough being a player from the hood in Hawaii. Thankfully there is a server just for you (Oceanic), other servers are for those on the west coast and east coast (Sorry, no Nebraska servers). Its just always a good idea to run with other players in your time zone.

Mythic does us a great service in displaying what each servers population is like for each server. If you don’t want to find yourself outnumbered 3:1 on the battlefield, look for something where the sides are about even. If you DO want to find yourself outnumbered 3:1 and play the underdog you can then you'll know where to roll. However, as time goes on populations (just like the game) will change.

You will also find annoying pop-ups on the server selection screen of an under populated server that you can join. Although I appreciate Mythic trying even out the player population (and that's a must for this game). Joining some random server where I dont know anyone reminds me of the last blind date I went on (imagine part “Ugly Betty”, part ZZ top).

Character selection
Once your server is selected you go to the character selection screen. Here you will see your race choices, one class from each race: A dwarf ironbreaker, an empire bright wizard, a high elf shadow warrior, a dark elf sorceress, a chaos chosen and lastly a goblin shaman. The first thing you must do is select a side (Order or Destruction). Once you create a character on one side you cannot play the other on that server (unless you DELETE all your characters on that server…which isn’t a pleasant thought). It is important for you to coordinate with any friends or guildmates you have beforehand. Know your server and know which side! Note: selecting a side on one server doesn’t mean you are confined to that side throughout the game. You can create characters from the other side by playing another server.

Why is selecting a side important. It is the basis for realm pride. You choose a side and you now are committed, you have investment. This is what was often lacking on WoW where you could play either on the same server. This is one of the greatest legacies from DAOC and is still ingrained into my spirit (Die Hibbies!). I am proud to see it again in WAR.

Please note, I’ve played both sides…. The grass is NOT greener on either!!!!

Character customization
For each character, have the option of adjusting his/her appearance. Options include sex, face, a facial attribute that different for each race (i.e. scars, circlets, tattoos, earrings and teeth color (ewww), hair styles, beards, hair color, skin color, the nearly useless eye color, and accessory color (the color of your previously chosen tattoos, earrings or beard jewelry). However, in all, there is less customization than in other games. However I was happy to find that SIZE is not adjustable. Too often in MMOs with PvP, size is maximally reduced to prevent targeting (this shout-out goes to all gnomes ...I hate you so).

Of note: Females have less character customization options than male counterparts because of no beards on women (The dwarven lore enthusiasts are no doubt crying foul) and there are no female greenskins (which makes me wonder about the race’s reproductive habits)

Now you made your character…its time to BENCH him. Your char goes to sit on the sides with all your other characters for this server. You have 12 characters slots on any server. Just select the one you want and hit PLAY.

Game Settings
There are a number of game settings that can be adjusted to maximal playability on your system. As a PvP centered game, I suggest that you adjust your settings anticipating large scale RvR combat. The PVE portion of the game is not taxing on most computers, however when you run into PvP scenarios is when the game will demand most of your machine.

Performance This is the meat and potatoes of the game settings. It can easily be set using the three preset performance settings: fastest frame rate, balanced, or high quality. With a pentium dual core computer I had no problems with PVE in High mode and RvR in balanced mode. If you have less than 2gb memory or a P4 equivalent, I would set things at low settings.

For those who desire specific performance adjustments you can customize specific settings and save those settings in one of 2 custom performance settings slots. Customize performance includes fine control of the drawing distance, the use of grass, water reflection, water effects, particle system details and when to display particles (for self part, all or none), the use of lightmaps/specular/shadows and the use quality of animations.

Other Gameplay settings
Sound: Like most MMOs, you can turn off your sound and play some real tunes!
Windows: Even with my old Radeon 2600, there are 6 settings for having a windowed mode or full screen mode, ranging from 1024X768 to 1280X1024. Some players with advanced video cards have dozens of resolution options.
Camera: The game defaults you to the standard over the shoulder omniscient. However here you can select if you want 1st person view. NOTE: Never RvR in 1st person view. It’s a disadvantage you don’t need. You can also invert mouselook and adjust player fades here
Chat: This is the place you can set your text scroll limit and the time that the text is displayed on screen before it fades away. You also have a profanity filter set by default (which you can deselect you #!@$!)
Names: What's in a name? Well here you decide what you want names to be displayed on (enemies, NPCs, party members, self, pets, etc)
Health Bars: Same as above but for health bars
General Gameplay: This is where you can set some important gameplay options: Like auto-queueing (yes I spelled it correctly!) for RvR scenarios; Whether you want an arrow to display over your selected target; And most importantly, how to turn off those damned annoying help tooltips!
Dialogue Warnings: If you want an extra check when you buy or sell something (i.e. Do you really want to buy this stack of cotton for 100 gold)

Graphics
The game world looks and feels so much like World of Warcraft, at first I thought someone from Mythic hacked a Blizzard laptop. However the truth is that World of Warcraft first based its game design on the early models of the old Warhammer tabletop game. In truth, Warhammer Online is not trying to look like WoW...it is WoW that first tried to look like Warhammer …except for the high elves which look eerily similar to those from LOTRO. However, many readers do contend that although similar, the graphics of War are FAR FAR superior in detail and are less cartoony.

However, most MMO players don’t care much for the MMO history lessons. Most players only know WoW …and WoW was released first. And there lies a problem. The fact is the MMO industry has been so dominated by WoW, that players are just burnt out left and right. Many are desperate for a new game. Like someone with post traumatic stress, the sight of Warhammer could induce terrifying flashbacks of WoW (The horror, the screaming…the DKP!). If you can get past its visual resemblance to WoW, Warhammer has some nice graphics. Nothing to scream “OMG!”, but it will do.

PVE Gameplay
Its no secret that WAR is a PvP (RvR) centered game, but it has not abandoned PVE. WAR has some good PVE Gameplay. The beginning on this game is like most every other MMO you’ve likely played. After choosing a race you are dumped into a beginning leveling area (newb central) surrounded by quest givers and NPCs.

To aid you in leveling, WAR provides a useful minimap to aid us in finding quests and knowing where to go. However, unlike Age of Conan, WAR does not spoon-feed you with their minimap. However WAR does display nearby quest NPCs, merchants, and trainers on the minimap with icons that look straight out of Metroid (I’m not kidding...LOOK). Green Icon for an NPC that gives a quest, brownish icon for quest turn-in NPC, bullseye for merchants and trainers, and green cross for a healer (because a red cross would be so unusual). The minimap will outline the approximate area of where to go to accomplish a quest. Hit ‘M’ to bring up the zone map and all the areas you need to go will be displayed.

Unfortunately, like in most MMOs, everyone just runs around and grabs all quests that they can find without reading the text. Then just mindlessly run off. The quests are actually fairly well written and give some great storylines. Your missing some of the fun if you ignore the text.

Solo Quests: Most solo quests worked well. Very few bugs. They were mainly the standard “Hi, I’m a farmer, I hate rabbits…go kill 10 rabbits. Good! Now I hate skunks, go kill 5 skunks. Good! “. No voice acting like in AoC (the first part) ...a few grunts and catchy phrases each time you click an NPC (my favorite is the Empire NPCs saying "Nothings beats a good sausage!"). Some quests are repeatable, generally these are the “Kill 5 skunks and bring me their stink glands ...great!...now bring me 5 more, they are selling well in France!”. As you can tell, for most quests, once is enough.

Public Quests: As most players know, there hasn’t been a true revolutionary MMO in a long time. Most games just add something special into the standard game formula. For WAR, it’s the extensive use of public quests. I think this is a great addition and well implemented. I know WAR isn’t the first for public quests, but it’s definitely one of the best.

Basically a “come in a join the party kind of event…Dude! BYOB”. A public quests is basically an event that repeats itself over and over. Most generally last about 15 minutes but may be quicker or longer depending on how many players there are. Most occur in 3 stages. The first stage: a lot of normal mobs. Second stage: champion mobs (hard mobs you need to team up against). Last stage: boss (sometimes more than one). At the end there is a magical determination of who contributed the most (and who showed the most cleavage) for which you are awarded roll modifier. The modifier is anywhere from 100 to 500 points that’s added to your loot roll. Then you roll for loot (between 1-1000) and the top third wins.

Yes, that means you could work the hardest and get nothing. Also someone could just do the bare minimum, AFK and yet win top prize. That’s life …welcome to middle management. Honestly I think it’s a very fair system and one that’s been well received by the majority of players. Also doing these public quests gain influence for the region (works just like faction in WoW). Gain enough influence and you’ll be rewarded for potions, armor and weapons. Some of the best armor and weapons can be found in PQs.

However if there isn’t enough players then your kind of screwed. This has been seen in the lower zones after the playerbase matures and moves on. Tier 1 on low population servers can be lonely. There are a lot of public quest events that are totally deserted. The best way to do them is to get a guild group and do the ones farther out of town, the fewer people involved the better the top loot bags are. Also some public quest NPCs would get bugged on occasion and despawn. Leaving us to feverishly search for the last required NPC… which no longer exists. In the end, we slowly waited for the event to reset.

Other PVE additions I also enjoyed.
Killing Sprees: When you start blowing through the opposition like hot cakes, you will receive a killing spree bonus which adds bonus XP for each successive kill. This should happen a lot, because one on one PVE against mobs is incredibly easy (too easy, in my opinion).

Moral: As you fight your moral goes up. As you gain more moral you gain special and very powerful attacks/abilities which can be used once every 30 seconds. Huge for Boss encounters and PvP. Don’t forget about them, you see them in the lower right corner.

Achievements and Titles: Very fun yet mainly worthless. You receive titles as you accomplish things in the game. For example: "Congratulations, you’ve killed your 25th mob" or “10th quest completed”. Some of my favorites “You’ve died 50 times” (thanks for reminding me) or “You’ve clicked yourself 100 times” (why are they keeping track?!?!?)

Armor Dyes: Deck out your marauder in a nice hot pink and green loin cloth that will surely make any enemy fear your metro-sexual prowess!

User Defines Macros: Something that I think all MMOs should have. Mythic does a good job with these.

RvR (PvP) GamePlay
Most games tout their PvP experience, For WAR the term is RvR. RvR stands for realm vs realm. This game isnt about one guy fighting another. Its you and your posse vs. the enemy and his crew in a big ol' medieval gang bang! RvR is why we came, its why we are here, and its why we will stay. If you are not looking for a fight, WAR is not your game.

Like Mythic’s other game, DAOC, this game is designed around large group combat and not small group combat. It is not the classes are not balanced, it is the sides. As such you will undoubtedly find that there is a particular class that you just have absolutely no change against (damn you sorcs!). However if you have a full realm group you ought to have an even chance against an enemy realm group. This accomplishes 2 things: first, it encourages players group together and second: it takes away from the ‘My class is gimp” and “NERF the enemy” posts that are so common on discussion boards. However, as the game goes on expect the inevitable nerfs and buffs to various classes (just don’t cry for em).

RvR occurs in 2 main areas in this game, The RvR scenarios and the RvR Zones. The biggest difference of WAR from most every other MMO which precedes it (including DAOC) is the huge emphasis on RvR. You can go from level 1 to level 40 through RvR alone. There are plenty of RvR quests (many repeatable) that gives you experience every time you join. Playing and killing enemies in RVR can make you a lot of EXP. Also, when an enemy dies he/she drops money and has a chance to drop loot just like a PVE MOB. Don’t worry, you don’t drop your own equipment, it’s randomly generated. In addition, as you fight and win (or lose) in RvR you gain renown. Renown can be cashed in for armor, weapons potions and further abilities. In all I thought this system worked very well. However, if you find yourself being repeatedly obliterated by the enemy, it may not be so fun.

RvR Scenarios: Scenarios are little minigame instances, separate from the rest of the world. The RvR was fast, fun and enjoyable for each type of character I played. Unlike DAOC where range is king, range in WAR is more like a 10 of spades. It’s a nice high advantage, but not anything that couldn’t be overcome with a suicide jack. Each realm seems to balance out well. However I will say that because level caps were set at 20, things may (and likely will) change at higher levels.

RvR scenarios have to be queued into. As such the overpopulated Destruction has to wait while under populated Order are immediately sent to their doom. You can now easily queue for all scenarios at a press of one button (Thanks Mythic!). As you enter the tier 1 scenarios it is obvious that these games are very much like Arathi Basin in WoW. Find a flag point, control it and gain points ..first to 500 wins. Tier 2 scenarios are slightly more complex since it has flag running (An Arathi/ Warsong frankenstein of a PvP minigame). Tier 3 even more.

Standard WoW PvP rules apply: Premade groups will obliterate any pickup group (PUG). Its not even funny (wasn’t in WoW either). Towards the end of one PUG vs. Premade encounter the PUG realm just sat back waiting for the game. If you plan to do a lot of scenarios, then make sure your with your guild, on vent and well organized.

There are 3 scenarios in each tier for each warring faction (Dwarves Vs Greenskins, Empire vs Chaos, Dark vs High elves). However you can play in any one you wish by flying over to another race’s land and joining. This is a great way to break up the monotony of playing one scenario continuously. Also you may find that you have better luck winning or joining a scenario elsewhere than your homeland.

RvR Zones: RvR zones are fun but somehow seemed less intense than the scenarios. Eventually RvR zones boil down to which zerg is bigger (mine of course ...I wear Magnum zergs). The real fun starts in the tier 2 RvR zones. The castle objectives are a lot more fun than scenarios. Destroying and defending castles… pillaging villages …its just fun!! (but you’ll have to wait until the second tier, Lev 12+). The zones were big enough to move around and no annoying Mobs to agro. However sometimes the zones are deserted. I do worry that the efficiency mongers claim "scenarios are the best way to go!" and thus everyone just lines up for scenarios over and over. However, The placement of renown merchants inside the RvR keeps (That you’ll need to take and control in order to use) gives some incentive to attack a keep. However, keep sieges on my server (when destruction outnumbers order 3:2 ....destruction owns everything and only rarely does Order muster a fight to take a keep. Should Order capture a keep, Destruction arrives with overwhelming numbers to quell the silly uprising.

What I saw one night from the top of a keep (a keep which we defended for a solid 4 hours and never lost) was incredible. Wave after wave of chaos doing their best to survive the artillery fire and burning oil. As the night went on the number of red name tags increased until there were at least 50 of them (maybe more), all trying to take the last keep in the empire zone and running up against a steadfast group of defenders intent on keeping this last bastion of order from falling into the hands of evil.

It’s in the RvR zones where you use siege machinery. Buying the necessary materials at the quartermaster and then you can set up rams, cannons, etc at specific nodes around a keep. However cannons ,while very fun to use, are generally too slow to be anything more than an annoyance to the enemy. And rams (in any game) are just never fun.

There are 3 tier 4 areas for each racial paring, two of them are racial and the middle is a neutral that one of the sides need to take over before they can take over their enemies tier 4 area, which when taken open up for the siege of the capital city. How a city siege will go for the first months after release is anyone's guess. Based on my experience with MMO releases, I expect there to be bugs. Based on Mythic's experience with RvR and sieges ..I expect it wont be bugged for long.

Chickening (comes before egging)
In an attempt at an anti-"ganking" system, Mythic has instituted the (funky) “chicken”. The mechanic activates when:
- You flag while inside a lower tier zone .
- You are RvR flagged and rank up, moving you beyond the cap for that tier
- You attack a player in a lower tier than your own (two lower on open RvR servers).

Thus it prevents you from killing lowbies (even if they deserve it). However this is a very hot topic amongst players. What if you want to go back to fill in stuff in my tome of knowledge? What if you to help a friend or an alt in your guild? What if you want to protect a friend running from one area to another? The answer ...Chicken a la mode.

The reason for this system is simple, if griefers get to grief with impunity…WAR will lose players. It’s a business decision as much as it is a gameplay decision. Thus far it seems to be working, but time will tell.

Flaws of WAR
Deja Vu
No MMO is perfect. Every MMO has something to improve upon, WAR is no exception. There is no “OMG THAT’S SO COOL” moment at all. In fact, I found myself moving from race to race, class to class, zone to zone and in the end I had a “Yea, been there, done that’ feeling. There just isn’t anything unique about WAR that says “BoYah!”. The look and user interface is like WoW, The RvR scenarios are like WoW PvP minigames, the RvR zones are like DAOC, the elves are freakishly like LOTRO (minus the numerous players with names like Legolas816).

Is this a big deal? It depends on who you ask. The fact is that there are millions of burnt out WoW players. They desperately want a change away from WoW. WAR is a great alternative to WoW ...but it may be so similar that people may ask “Which game am I playing again? Did I click the right Icon?”

Plenty of “MMO veterans” who frequent the discussion boards are already flaming away. They complain that WAR is not a revolutionary MMO, that it’s not the next generation of MMO. No, its not. But some news to those ‘MMO veterans’, they never claimed it to be. Following the Blizzard (succesful) business model, WAR takes the best aspects of recent MMOs and improves or streamlines them.

Goodness Sucks!
Like DAOC, WAR will be very population dependent. The fairness and enjoyment will matter less on class balance and more on population balance. From both preview weekends, open beta and countless polls, it seems pretty obvious that Destruction will outnumber Order when the game is released. My guess is destruction will be up 3:2 in player population ..perhaps even 2:1. This will be disastrous on servers where this occurs.

This is a big deal for both scenario RvR and for open RvR zones. The RvR zones can often come down to a zerg pissing contest. The under populated side, no matter now coordinated and practiced will often be overrun. Soon both sides will tire of the imbalance. For scenarios the under populated side will enjoy easy and quick entry into the fight. The overpopulated side will curse and bemoan their queue times.

To be honest, order races are just less appealing to the masses. Most destruction classes have looks and plays better than it's order counterpart. Although I must give kudos to the character designers of the bright Wizard and Witch Hunter, the remainder of Order is just 'blah'. The entire High Elf zone is a big snore fest. Destruction just has that 'It' factor that draws players to it.

However , I've seen this in many MMOs. Eventually things even out. I'm guessing it may take 4-5 months.
UPDATE: Mythic , citing population balance has now increased XP and renown gain for underpopulated sides. Very smart and solid first step!!

Hellllooooo…echo…echo….echo
The PVE aspect of this game is surprisingly…lonely. I see players, they are all around me moving, jumping, etc. But the channels are silent. The chat system is not very good. There is no /HELP channel or OOC channel. As such there is no ‘Barren’s Chat”. Hey, I didn’t like Barren’s chat either ...but at least you know people were around. Perhaps this is how MMO players act now …its like I joined ‘mimes online’. I understand the need to restrict channels...the gold sellers are already salivating (DON’T BUY!!). Still, I hope future patches will improve this area.

Character Customization
Character customization is lacking. Although there is a lot of face changing features in character creation everyone still ends up looking the same. Even with dyes there isn’t a lot of variation in the actual armor/weapons. When you see 5 high elves charging towards you the first thing you’ll think is “Cool, quintuplets!”

This is mainly due to the fact that everyone will be wearing the same armor (renown armor). Mythic will need to add some more models. I expect end game players will have a mixture of renown, public quest and other gear this may allow for some differences in appearance.

Crafting
By far crafting is the weakest part of this game. All I can say is ‘GAAGHHHH!!’. Understand, I never liked crafting in any MMO but WAR’s system makes me want to start fishing again in WoW. You can only chose one gathering skill and one profession. This is great since it means the crafters will need other players to help them produce the items. However the gathering is slow and uninspiring and the usefulness of the professions (there are only 2, talisman making and apothecary) is still unclear. I wont go into more specifics here on their crafting because I know its not finished and it will change …it has to.

Minor Annoyances
Every new MMO has its bugs. WAR is no exception (did I say that already?). Lots of pathing bugs, attacking and animation bugs. Pet classes have it rougher than most (White lions I feel your pain!). Several geometry bugs in RvR zones with objects sticking up through the floors etc. Surprisingly, I haven’t had a lot of /stuck moments. These things are to be expected. They will be dealt with in time and upcoming patches. Recent patches have made huge improvements ..I expect that trend to continue.

Summary
--War is a great game, has solid performance and enjoyable gameplay. It stays true to its RvR premise
--Nothing eye popping wonderful about the game, but it’s solidly above average throughout.
--RvR is the core of the game. If you don’t like fighting other players, this game is not for you
--How Mythic deals with population imbalance will make or break this game
--It looks and feels like WoW in many places. If the visual aspects of WoW makes you nauseated, this is not the game for you.
--The servers seem stable and they took the load of 1-2K players well
--Minor bugs that still exist most should be easily flushed out before release or soon thereafter. Nothing that seems gamebreaking
--This game seems as highly addictive as WoW was when it was first released ...prepare yourself.

For more in depth guides for specific classes.
Take a look at these Professional Warhammer Strategy and Class Guides

There is also a great Warhammer 1-40 Leveling guide thats a HUGE help to get to to end game content quickly!!




Hope you had fun reading. Have any additional thoughts or info, put them in the boxes below or send me an email at Admin@TheBurialGrounds.Com

Level Quickly! Class specific PvP Tactics! Warhammer Class and Strategy guides!	Make your Warhammer life easier by using the Warhammer Leveling Guide

Other Warhammer Related Articles I wrote

Age of Conan Vs Warhammmer Online
Warhammer Online Leveling and Gold Guides

Players who generally agree with this article said	Some players would add these changes
Cherry Thanks for the great review. Very funny too!	Geldon "A Strong Game with Several Weaknesses" As an subtitle goes, this one feels somewhat lacking. Technically, I can say the same about any game that isn't a perfect 10 but is better than a 7 or so.
L2spell you need to improve your grammar or get a decent copy editor -- "your" instead of "you're", "most every" instead of "almost every". content of review is good but spelling/grammatical mistakes hurt my eyes and make the review seem less valid.	Hajii I disagree, I'm an MMO veteran from the early days of EQ and WAR is perfect blend of the best things from previous MMO's with TONS of character, charisma and flare. I would give this game a 8.5 in its current state, but I suspect over time it will evolve into the best MMO on the market.
Wojski so we have another attempt to break WoW dominance. As I have said on various occasions. WoW's power lies in two aspects - absolute population(is bigger so it gets even bigger - I play here cos my friends are here) and Sunk-cost trap (please tell me who will admit that he has lost 4 years playing the game that is absolutely worthless and everything he has learned and achieved is nothing) . That second mechanism makes WoW be more enjoyable than it realy deserves.	PLeaseStop I think your report on the game only focus' on tier 1 and 2 and therefore has pretty little impact on how the game will be when you get out of those teirs. Its sad that so many people are delivering knowledge to the masses and still know so little about it.
Harlett I dont get your guys on the blue side. You complain about what hes written but it seems obvious you havnt read the whole article. You probably jumped down to the last section and thought it bad. All in all the whole article is a positive review. I also dont agree 100% with everything he says...but all in all its correct. Some of you have to chill and take constructive criticism about your game	Anon I do agree with a couple of your statements but overall I disagree. This game is similar to WoW but it is unique. Basically I see this game as WoW + DAoC revised except the WoW aspect is very minimal. The game's character customisation is actually very good compared to many other MMOs and I very rarely see anyone running around that looks exactly like me. I suggest you scrap this article, play for a month, get to rank 40, and see if your opinion on the game changes.
Zubb Pretty good review. Need to rework it now that the game has been released. Note: You can not now, nor could you ever create 2 characters of opposite faction on the same server in WoW.	Quty I must say, this is a bad review. Should we go back to when WoW first released and review that? Oh wait, that's right. Their servers were down for a week and we couldn't play! From the start, he didn't give a race, class, side a chance. You can't get a feel for the game when you don't go past lvl 5. You don't see keep sieges until tier 2 (holy shit those are fun!). Is he really only going to compare stuff to WoW? There are other MMOs out there. No one around? Has this R-tard played WoW recently? There's barely anyone in the old world these days. Just because this fruit cake doesn't wanna group with people, whatever... Open groups and Public Quests are so awesome. Don't get me started on character customization... This guy needs to be shot in the face. Obviously he hasn't played WoW recently in the lower levels. So I would assume he's played in the end game. Everyone looks the same! At least in WAR I can make myself stand out as a giant purple barney! WAAAGH !!! This care bear needs to go back to WoW and stay there. WAR doesn't want you, thank you.
Uni Zubb is wrong... please go back and check your information before posting. You can create 2 characters on different factions on PvE Servers. Also I would like to scream IMBA for Order.... if it wasn't for the Destruction numbers-Order would pwn face in every aspect. Who hasn't been caught in Order's "Moving Wall of Ranged Death"?	I have played wow from start, and i am now a diehard war fan. Ive been playing war from the start, last week. and i havent stoped, rvr is insane, and im order, and our que times are quick. and we are outnumberd 2:1 by chaos, and we own all the tier 2 keeps right now, so yeah!
Uni Zubb is wrong... please go back and check your information before posting. You can create 2 characters on different factions on PvE Servers. Also I would like to scream IMBA for Order.... if it wasn't for the Destruction numbers-Order would pwn face in every aspect. Who hasn't been caught in Order's "Moving Wall of Ranged Death"?	Desilous What makes WOW so fun is the end game experince thats how it always been. Everyone will tell you the game doesn't start till you cap. What will make or break WAR is the end game material. MMO's are about keeping the player intrested even after he CAPs you have to take these reviews with a grain of salt. The real review will be in 5 months when when people have capped and are playing the high lvl RVR or PVP battles. I'm intrested to see how mythic will keep my attention once I hit 40. WAR is not revoltionary but it makes everything better. Its a breath of fresh air and that is all that is needed I say overall its 9.0. Just wait till the pop increases cause we all know the more pep's we have playing the better the PVP experiece. See you out there.
Uni, Don't double post
Sqigoth I think the reason that destruction is so much more popular is because in WoW, Alliance was overpowered and too popular. So when people got to WAR, they decided to join the "bad guys" instead.	Tracy The thing that stuck out to me the most is how you said WAR looks like WoW. Huh ? Maybe the interface, yeah, but the actual graphics of the games are absolutely nothing alike.
Avantis Actually, in WoW, Alliance is only dominating on the PvE servers. If you look on the PvP servers, that is where Horde rules. I think that since WAR is more PvP based is why you see an overpopulation of Destruction (the more vile and ugly side). I can't explain it but I think psychologically, people who prefer a more controlled and stable environment of PvE also prefer a races and cities that convey more of a positive and serene feel. Conversely, people who want more activity and chaos that is enhanced by PvP play the uglier or more brutal races and tend to enjoy darker and more malevolent atmospheres. This may not be true in all cases but it seems to be a general theme in the games I have seen.
in warhammer (well 40k anyway), the ORKs & goblins reproduce by producing spores on their backs. much like the gremlins in "grelmins" or mushrooms
its actually their shoulders
Niva you can create as much as you want on either side in WoW, on any server.