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.