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dkirschner's Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (PC)
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| [October 10, 2010 05:54:52 AM]
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I created a trial account for Warhammer Online originally a year and a half ago because Daniel bought it and was raving about it. We played together a few times and I didn't think anything of it. Since I was still on my old computer, I could barely run the game with graphics all low, and it stuttered and characters floated around, and it generally sucked because of that. I re-downloaded and made another account about 6 months ago and had a blast with it. You can play all you want up until level 10. I got one to 10 with one faction, then leveled another on the other faction to 5, and made a level 2 on the first faction. The level 10 was some dual-wielding melee class; the 5 was a Witch Hunter, who dual wields a sword in one hand and a pistol in the other; the level 2 was a goblin pet class. I just logged in real quick to get some inspiration to put some old thoughts about the trial experience down on paper and so I can close the gamelog for it.
WAR revolves around PvP, or RvR as they call it. RvR is everywhere and involves the two factions, Chaos and Order, fighting it out all over the world. There are RvR objectives built into like every zone, even the starting zones! This makes the game dynamic as territory is always shifting hands. You can, at any time, enter one of a handful of instanced battlegrounds, or you can wander into an official world RvR area in the zone, where teams of players are running around capturing and holding objectives. There are 3 battlegrounds by the time you're level 10, which is awesome. There's basically a dual experience and reward system, one for 'regular' leveling and one for RvR leveling. When I say this game revolves around PvP, I'm serious. You can level up only doing BGs and RvR events if you like. In addition, there are the standard quests, and in these starting zones, a lot of them orient you to RvR objectives.
As far as PvE goes, WAR has these incredibly cool open quests. I can't remember the proper name, but there are areas in each zone with ongoing PvE events that occur in phases. Any player or group can wander on by and see what phase of the event the public quest is in, and they can choose to participate or not. As soon as, say 20 skeletons have been killed in total by all players in the area for phase 1, phase 2 begins and there is a different objective. Anyone stopping by can hop straight into phase 2. It's a very fluid system, and loot is rewarded based on your contribution to the overall quest. After it's all done, it resets, and they all go on like this constantly.
These RvR and PvE events are integrated fantastically into the story of the game. Each part of a zone is a chapter in the story and each PvE or RvR scenario really has something to do with the fighting going on in the Warhammer universe between Chaos and Order. Again, it feels very cohesive and believable. I think the environment and the feel of the world is amazing. The game looks great, the sounds, oh my god, the sounds are phenomenal. You hear shouts and explosions and thunder and howling wolves. The war-torn world is accompanied by a perfect sonic landscape.
A final note on this brief praise of WAR is that the town NPCs are very well done. They go about their business building, moving around, speaking scripted speech with one another, and so on. They did a great job bringing the world to life with the friendly NPCs.
I was tempted to subscribe to this game for a while over the summer, but got busy and never got around to it. I would definitely put this on my #1 spot for games to commit some time and money to after the ones I'm already committing time and money to. I'm very curious as to whether or not it stops being so immersive and plain fun. In 17 total levels, I never got bored. There is always something to do, and it's not just fetch quests. You actually have a bit of a choice in how you want to level. Oh, and BGs scale everyone to the same level, so you're not at a huge level disadvantage, which is a fantastic idea. You can start PvPing at level 1 and be on more or less equal footing. And that's that. Great game, love the trial, will consider trying this one out further in the future.
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dkirschner's Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (PC)
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Current Status: Finished playing
GameLog started on: Monday 21 June, 2010
GameLog closed on: Sunday 10 October, 2010 |
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This is the only GameLog for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. |
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