AFK

Been very busy lately, and also been playing a major amount of Warhammer Online. Feeling very positive about the game, there always so much to do, and it never feels like a chore. My biggest problem is deciding which character to play. I seem to have narrowed the list down to three. I was hoping for a main and occasional alt situation, but three? Hmmm...

Initial Warhammer impressions

On Tuesday morning I managed to get my open beta code registered, patch up my client and log in to Warhammer Online. I have spent most of my free time between now and then playing, and indeed I am sitting here wondering if I should have a quick log in before work, which is a good sign, if slightly worrying. I feel I am in something of a honeymoon period with the game, so at this point my opinion is slightly biased by the excitement of having a new MMO to play (though I have been in many open betas where I realised within a few hours that the games were not for me.)

Anyway, so far, I love it. It really feels like Warhammer to me, which was my biggest concern. The atmosphere in the two zones I have been in (Nordland and Ekrund) feels spot on. Questing is the usual MMO fare ("go there, kills these/bring me these/talk to so-and-so") but it feels much more focused on the never-ending war, rather than arbitrarily killing boars, so there is a nice logic to it. You really feel like a foot soldier, and possible hero in the making, rather than a traveling odd job person.

Much has been written about the Public Quest system, and it certainly is a great feature. To be suddenly part of a large scale conflict when you were just running about on your own is very thrilling, and the way influence and contribution in the quest work towards you earning lovely loot just seems to function so well. I found myself repeating public quests many time, on the one hand trying to get the loot, but also because it was just so much fun, and again, I really felt like I was part of a little dwarf squad. 

Then there is RvR combat. I never played Dark Age of Camelot, though I have read much about how Mythic were very skilled at devising meaningful, fun pvp. Well, I eventually found myself in the RvR section of Nordland and I was blown away by how much fun it was. I think I spent about 4 hours in a massive battle for territory. Characters seem to be able to take a fair bit of damage in Warhammer Online, so you feel like you have a certain amount of survivability. Even as a relatively squishy Witch Hunter, I always felt able to retreat if things were going badly. This leads to battles where you have a little bit of space to think, and more importantly, you do not run to the battle, fight for 1 minute, get killed and repeat. Instead you skirmish, withdraw, regroup and charge again. One moment your forces are being pushed back, the next you get the upper hand and break your enemies lines. It is exhilarating, and tremendous fun.

The last thing I shall mention, which rather neatly ties the public quests and the RvR together is the open group system. When you get into a public quest or RvR area, you quickly get into the habit of clicking the open group icon and seeing what the nearest one to you is. Almost without fail there would be a large open group there taking part. You click join, and suddenly you are in a group. As somebody with a massive aversion to Pugs, I am surprised at how effective this system is, but it works because it is so inclusive. The more players that join, the better chance you have, and players come and go over the course of the battle. 

Overall, I log on, and within minutes I am having great fun. There are plenty of carrots dangling to tempt you to progress (new skills at every level, influence rewards, PQ rewards, renown rewards, etc), and so far it never feels like a chore to earn those rewards. They just happen in amongst all the fun I am having. I would like to balance out these impressions by talking about some of the negative issues with the game (mostly annoying bugs), but I have about an hour before I need to start work, and I think I shall have a quick run about Nordland instead. I shall write more on the game another time.

Open Beta woes

The Warhammer Online European open beta has not been a smooth experience, to say the least. After much reassurance that things would be fine, the account creation and beta key validation systems just could not handle the load, and even now things are not working correctly.

I have mixed feelings about it all. On the one hand, I can appreciate that this is all part of the stress test, and that hopefully there are things being learnt now which will ensure that the actual launch next week will go smooth. On the other hand, I cannot believe the ridiculousness of only putting up the (broken) registration system on the same day as the beta began, claiming that it would of course be fine and then being surprised that is could not cope. I can cope with waiting a few more days to get into the open beta servers (though I am of course feeling very impatient and a bit frustrated with the situation), but I just hope this is not a taster of what to expect in the future. I have heard the horror stories about Europe getting badly treated during the Dark Age of Camelot days, and had hoped that those days were over, but maybe not?

Warhammer Open Beta

So, I managed to get myself an open beta key for Warhammer Online, which pleases me greatly. I shall report my thoughts on the experience here over the course of next week. Looking forward to trying to narrow down my class choices, and of course seeing if I enjoy the game or not.

No LotrO yesterday, instead I played a bit of Baldurs Gate, possibly my favourite game of all time. I am slowly making my way through the entire saga, as I never finished BG2, and never played Throne of Bhaal. I am about a third of the way through the first one, and it seems I am slowly leaning towards a more morally ambiguous party this time around. I chose a cleric for my character, and I am imagining that as I move though the saga, the character will be drawn deeper down the evil pathway. 

Settling in

Had an enjoyable couple of hours in LotrO last night, ending up by running back to town as the sun was setting, handing in the few quests I had just completed and hitting level 25. I am reaching a feeling in the game where I would like to find an active guild of like-minded folks, but there is something holding me back from doing this. In a few weeks, I will be playing Warhammer. I am not planning on giving on up LotrO by any means, but I imagine I will have a break from it, assuming I actually enjoy Warhammer that is. I do not want to spend the time finding a nice community in Lotro, only to vanish as soon as Warhammer comes along, so I am going to delay the search for a while. 

This does leave me feeling a bit unsettled in LotrO though, like I am watching from the sidelines. 

Darkfall Beta

So the elusive Darkfall made a surprise visit this week, with a new trailer of in-game footage and a chance to sign up for beta. For the unaware, Darkfall is an MMO which has been in development for many many years, and is often rumoured to be vapourware. I have mixed feelings about the game. It features an incredibly old school hardcore rule-set, and many features that I find intriguing. Players are free to attack each other anywhere (at the cost of their alignment), all armour and items are lootable from player corpses and a skills based rather than level based character development system to name a few. 

However, there are a few things that I have misgivings about. The game features real time combat, which in my mind just means players will run about flailing wildly at each other, or aim arrows and spells in first person view. I am much more a fan of the auto attack, choosing abilities and spells to use sort of combat. I had issues with the more action combat in DDO, and AoC was worse, as that just felt like a gimped version of auto attack that made me press 3 keys instead of 1, and claimed that this made it visceral. Tedious yes, visceral no. Anyway...

My other big concern for Darkfall is the look of the game. In my mind, the character design and artwork just looks extremely ugly. The new trailer did little to put my mind at rest, as it mostly involved badly animated chunky warriors swinging awkwardly at each other.

Interestingly, the trailer suggested  a 2008 release. That would be a surprise. I am certainly interested in trying the game, and of course I signed up for the beta straight away, I just have my doubts.