In the early centuries of recorded time, there was scarce a time as turbulent as the rise of the Three Kingdoms. The term “three” kingdoms is somewhat misleading, as each ruler believed he was the true heir to the seat of the Emperor, and therefore ruler of all of China. Though brief in duration, this period has been greatly romanticized by modern scholars and writers. The disunification of China, and the pride of each Kingdom left the country feeling desperate and hopeless, though wartime culture had never been better. The Kingdoms, known as Wei, Shu, and Wu, sought to ascertain control of the country through whatever means necessary.

Continued…

Cryptic has released information on the upcoming Season Two: Ancient Enemies content update for Star Trek Online, which will launch this month. STO Season Two will feature more Star Trek races, new episodes, a level cap increase from 45 to 51 (which comes with new ranks), eight new Klingon faction episodes, mini-games, improved Klingon customization and all sorts of other Trekkie-type goodness.

Sony Online Entertainment has been very fickle about revealing details about their upcoming MMO, DC Universe Online – specifically, a much anticipated release date. Thankfully, at this year’s E3 conference taking place in the Los Angeles Convention Center June 15-17, the team over at SOE are revving up to finally release some solid details about the game and announced its scheduled release date of November of this year. However, a beta is still up in the air, so when you’ll actually get your hands on DC Universe Online for the first time is still anyones call. DC Universe seems to be a direct response to Microsoft and Marvel’s forays into online gaming, hoping to stack up against the big boys.

One of the coolest features that DC Universe Online (soon to be available for the PS3 and PC) boasts is its real-time in-game combat mechanics. Press punch or kick, and your character immediately reacts with the approapriate attack. Stringing together combos is the most effective way to take down baddies. It may not rival any serious beat-um ups in terms of brawler game play, but this more-arcady-than-usual combat system in an MMO seems fresh and has great animations to boot and will keep players on their toes in battle.

Continued…

Aika Online has announced that its latest expansion, Ashes of Betrayal, will be released June 17^th. The expansion will feature a new region of the Darkrane Forest, home to the half bird, half human race of the Kynari. Quests in the newly developed region will focus around restoring order to recent turmoil caused by the death of a high counsellor including a new instanced dungeon to explore. New equipment and skill boosts starting at level 51 will also be part of the expansion. For screenshots of Aika Online’s Preview of Ashes of Betrayal, click here.

In a sneak preview before tomorrow’s launch of Square Enix’s latest free to play MMO, Fantasy Earth Zero, MMORPG.com was given a demo of the game and an insider interview with developers GamespotUSA. The PvP Coliseum preview of Fantasy Earth Zero and interview showed a rather traditional MMO PvP setup with one twist that has been gaining popularity in recent games.

The Coliseum was described as reminiscent of ancient Roman structures.  Outside, there were vendors, barbers, couriers to send a message and a banker. As you might expect, the Coliseum is a circular building, high stones walls, finely crafted columns, your basic Arena Battle 101 setting. There are 2 aspects of the game players can compete in at the Coliseum.

Firstly, there’s your standard PvP deathmatch battles. You check in with the arena master and sign up as a participant. Every time you want to fight in the arena, it will cost you some cash, or Arb Rings, the game’s currency.

A max group of 4 gets in line for a quick, ten minute brawl, first to 10 kills, normal deathmatch with anywhere from 2v2 to 7v7 players a side.

The second part of battle in the Coliseum, the Challenge of Rohm (pronounced, Rome) is a little different, a trend MMO’s are starting to catch onto. Instead of a player on player battle, the second aspect groups 4 players together against mobs of enemies, working together to quell wave after wave of bad guys. You’ll stop mini-bosses along the way until you reach the boss, or “Beast King.” This tactic has been used before in console games for decades, but more and more we are starting to see it in MMO’s and Fantasy Earth Zero is no different.  Although it’s level-based, players are advised to try this aspect of the Coliseum after level 20 due to its difficulty.

Fantasy Earth Zero’s level cap will be set at 40 which will be the height of the intense 100 vs. 100 PvP battles the game boosts as its strongest selling point. GamepotUSA opened up to MMORPG.com giving some insider details about their industry and what we can expect from Fantasy Earth Zero.

When asked what sets FEZ apart from the growing number of other free MMO’s out there, GamepotUSA answered, “Our gameplay. I could cite other areas, like our music, the strong art style, the dynamic, player-affected game world, but in the end, it comes down to 100 player PvP with fast-paced action, twitch aiming and RTS elements. There is no game like FEZ on the market–here your skill trumps everything. Level 20 or 40, you have the same HP. You cannot buy your way to victory–a skilled player will always beat you. So the game play is what makes FEZ unique–the rush of battle is great fun.”

Talking about the new Coliseum level being in direct response for players demand for a smaller arena in which to have more intimate PvP battles and more to do, GamepotUSA said, “…the Colosseum was already developed, however, our player base has clamored for additional activities to do in-game. So, when the time came to decide which update to implement, we chose to give the players something they’ve asked for–PvE content and a pure PvP mode.”

GamepotUSA was then asked an interesting question about the difference, if any between what Japanese gamers want from a game and what American audiences want. GamepotUSA responded with, “We see intriguing differences in the fighting styles across countries. In Japan users are really quick to make a front, where a distinct line is made for each side. In America users are more fluid in their formations, instead focusing on flanking their opponents. Our North American users also show greater attachment to their countries–I’m constantly amazed by their forming and breaking of alliances.”

Finally, GamepotUSA was asked about the future of classes and races, their response: “Heh, well, other races is not on the agenda for now, however new classes will find their way into the game. Right now we are waiting until the community has fully adjusted to the core gameplay before introducing new elements. We also want to make sure that the classes are properly balanced before we implement them.”

The game launches tomorrow, May 18th 2010, and its free!

In the past I have been lucky enough to participate in the beta testing for City of Villains and Auto Assault.  So when I got a chance to try out the beta of Global Agenda I jumped at it.  What I find great about the whole beta testing process is getting a glimpse into a game before the final version gets released to the public.   Even thought the game is already out, I haven’t had a chance to go get it yet, so this is my Global Agenda preview of the beta.

The game is set in a futuristic world where you have a choice of 4 archetypes to play with in recon, assault, medic and robotics.  Each caters to different types of game play and has their own advantages and disadvantages.  Missions are gained from a hub where you join a team of players to either complete a PvE or PvP mission.  I was disappointed that there did not seem to be any solo play options.  Character customization is initially limited to just changing the look of the face and hair, unlike games like City of Heroes or Villains which offer a wider range of appearance options.  Any further changes in appearance comes at a price, from changing the paint color and armor upgrades that can be purchased later.

The archetype you choose to play really depends on your game style.  With Assault you get a fair amount of weapon power with a chain gun, heightened armor and health regeneration abilities.  While it was fun to blast away at your opponents I found it limiting and nothing that I have not played before.  The only time I found the type truly effective was having a medic nearby to keep healing me as I dealt out the damage.

With a medic you are essentially the healer of the party, throwing off heal bombs and firing a gelatinous heal ray at your teammates.  Low on offense power, this is great for anyone who likes to be the support member of the party.  I found that if the medic is doing his/her job in the mission the chances of keeping a good tight team from constantly having to re-spawn members goes up considerably.   Even though every player gets a jetpack, having to make your way back through the mission map to your team can be tiresome.

The recon class uses steath and speed to make it’s mark in the game.  Essentially functioning  as a scout you can use invisibility mode which looks great on screen but to me was not very useful when I used it.  I am sure if I were to get into that type of game play it might be more interesting in later levels,  but early on it did not catch my interest.

Of all of the classes I found robotics the most interesting.  It offers the most variety of the four classes, offering both offensive and defensive abilities to the team.  The ablity to create a shield or auto turret on the fly were fun and gave me something more to do than just shooting the heck out of enemy robots.   It is definately a class I would be tempted to play more and see what could be done in higher levels.

Overall the key to playing this game seems to be teamwork.  As long as you keep your party in a tight group and each class/archetype does their job the survival rate really remains high.  Most times by playing this way you can finish in time with very little re-spawning.  While you will do most of your fighting with range weapons,  there are melee weapons for each class that seem to be more useful in the Player VS. Player Environment.

In addition to Player Vs. Environment play I also got a chance to try out Player Vs Player mode.  In this mode it is basically a free for all in an arena where you just shoot at the enemy color and try and survive.  For the most part I kept getting punked by the opposition as soon as I entered the zone. Playing the assault class I found the only way to survive was to find someone else on the same side to team up with on the fly, preferably a medic.  While PVP mode has never been my favorite aspect of any MMO, I can see where this part of the game would appeal to some people.

So after trying the beta will I be tempted to pay to play the game, the answer is more than likely yes.  Despite some flaws such as getting stuck in the tutorial with a non-functioning jet-pack (which you can skip through thankfully) and very awkward looking leg movements, which I am sure will be solved in the final product.  The game works great as a futuristic third-person shooter with some interesting RPG elements and plenty to keep you coming back to it.

When it was released, the first Guild Wars was different, to say the least. To a professional video game developer or hardcore MMORPG gamer the concept of ArenaNet’s debut game may have sounded more like an experiment. Guild Wars combined classical hack and slash gameplay in a brand new shell, while rewriting the laws of instance based gameplay and featuring a merciless PvP system where everything comes down to your skills. It was proudly branded “MMORPG with no monthly fees”. Then out of nowhere – it turned into a hit. But not because it was original, but because it was flawless on almost every aspect, other than the lack of content of course.  This was later on fixed with the release of two stand alone campaigns – Factions and Nightfall and one true expansion – Eye of the North. Now it is time for me to present to you the true sequel to Guild Wars – Guild Wars 2. This Guild Wars 2 preview will inform you of almost every bit of information that was released since the announcement of the game.

A new world

Guild Wars 2 is set about 250 years after the events in the first game. The world has shifted to a point where even the bravest of skill hunters that stormed the servers of Guild Wars will not be able to recognize it. The cause of these changes, other than time, is the brand new and much more serious threat – the Dragons. These massive beasts have awakened after a millennia of sleep. So far we were introduced to three dragons – Primordus, Zhaitan and Jormag. The awakening of the dragons has caused havoc and despair throughout the land. The only hope left is for the races to unite. Old conflicts must be forgotten for the greater good of the land. As you may have already noticed, you will now be able to choose between one of the five playable races: Asura, Charr, Human, Norn and Sylvari. Each race promises a completely different look on things and each will have its advantages or disadvantages. The asura, for example, will be able to summon golems to help in battle. Not much is known about the race-driven gameplay yet, but more information is to come. The companions system of the first game will be reworked so that we’ll once again be able to bring henchman for aid, but they will not take a party slot but instead serve as an extension to the the character. As for the presentation of the world – it will now be open and containing all the players at once.

Migration

Guild Wars 2 will offer a sort of migration feature from the first game to the second. No, you won’t be able to transfer your pumped fire elementalist with that awesome AoE build, but instead you will be rewarded for spending so much time to build it. As some of you may remember, Eye of the North introduced a hall of monuments feature. This is the key that will allow you to transfer some of your titles/items from the first game to the second. It will not be a direct transfer, though. You can also reserve your names through that same system.

Quests

Guild Wars 2 will utilize a brand new quest system different that anything we’ve seen. The game will feature the so-called “Event system”. Different events will occur through the world of Guild Wars 2 and if you happen to be present at one of those – you can participate. One of the examples demonstrates a dragon attacking the bridge of a small village. The players will then have a choice whether to fight the beast or not. If they succeed in this, the dragon will flee and they will be rewarded. Should they fail then the dragon destroys the bridge of the village and a new series of quests is unlocked to fix the bridge.

Player versus Player

There will be two types of PvP in Guild Wars 2 – World PvP and Structured PvP. World PvP will allow large numbers of players to participate in massive battles in the world of Guild Wars 2. It was noted that this PvP mode will have different objectives to complete. There will also be a Lineage-ish castle system where players join each other to take control of a selected castle. The other side of the coin – the structured PvP – will be similar to GvG’s in the first game.

Technical info

Guild Wars 2 is powered by an updated version of the engine from the first game. Actually “updated” is not the right word, “complete makeover” is more like it. The engine will offer more detailed models, better lighting and shadows, new animation and effects systems, plus new audio and cinematics engines and a more flexible combat and skill-casting system. There have been rumors about the game supporting Dx10, too. As for the physics system – it’s Havok. To sum this up – the game will look astonishing. The music will be recorded by Jeremy Soule, who did the music of the first Guild Wars.

Closing comments

Guild Wars 2 is shaping up like a great MMO. A revolutionary one, even. ArenaNet have tweaked the right places and are offering us a more massive and epic adventure. No release dates have been announced as of yet but the game is nearing it’s completion. Which reminds me that ArenaNet have said the game will have no monthly fees. One thing is for sure – I will be getting Guild Wars 2. And it looks like I’m not the only one.

Introduction

Quest Online is releasing their new fantasy MMO, Alganon, at the end of this month. I have had the opportunity to get my hands on this game for a couple of weeks and below is my Alganon preview.

Character Creation

Character creation in Alganon is pretty straightforward. You are given the choice of either the Asharr or Kujix faction and that choice also determines your race. Humanity serves the Asharr and the Talrok (which look a heck of a lot like elves) serve the Kujix. Once your faction and race are settled, you have four pretty standard fantasy rpg classes to choose from: soldier, ranger, magus and healer. Next, you choose to which of the five families your character belongs. More on families later. Finally, there are a few customization sliders where you can tailor the look of your character.

Creating My Ranger

Classes, Abilities and Specializations

Alganon sports four character classes that fit closely to the main archetypes of fantasy gaming: soldier, ranger, magus and healer. Though this might seem to be painfully limiting, each class has four (core plus three more) ability specializations that serve to further differentiate characters. This allows two characters of the same class to play slightly differently and fill different roles in a group situation. Let’s take a look at two examples of classes and their specializations.

Soldiers are the tanks of Alganon and as such, their Core specialization is wearing heavy armor and taunting their opponents. However, soldiers can also specialize in Weaponry which will increase their offensive capabilities, particularly with two-handed weapons. A warrior who focuses on Tactics will gain crowd control and utility skills that will serve a group well. Finally, a Protection specced soldier will become master of the “sword-and-board”, sacrificing damage for the ability to tank and absorb hits like no other class.

Solder Tactics Tree

Rangers are a strange mix of bowmen, melee dps, healers and controllers that can serve many functions on a battlefield. A ranger’s Core abilities focus on managing threat, snares and party-buffs. Guardianship rangers gain additional defensive abilities which allow them to avoid damage and possibly be effective off-tanks. Rangers focused on Predation increase their damage-dealing skills while their counterparts who study Lifeblood gain considerable healing skills.

Every level, characters gain a point, which can be applied to one of the abilities under one of the four specializations for their class. Each point allocated improves one of the character’s actions, eking out a percentage more damage, giving a better chance to dodge, reducing the cooldown time, etc. If you’ve used WoW’s talents, or EQ2’s Acheivement  Points, this system will be familiar to you.

Studies

Alganon’s studies are an interesting addition to the fantasy rpg mix. Like abilities, studies provide an incremental increase in your character’s abilities. This could be a higher resistance to magic, or access to better crafting materials and recipes. However, unlike abilities, studies are not gained by leveling up. Studies are learned in real-time, points accumulating each second, even if you are offline. As long as any of your characters have studies queued up, you will continue to advance. Players of Eve Online will recognize that game’s skill system as the inspiration for Alganon’s studies.

Adding New Studies to My Queue

More on Families

One of the unique features of Alganon is that every character is part of a family. Though they have flowery, fantasy rpg names made up of randomly chosen syllables jammed together with the odd apostrophe, the families really represent your character’s motivation and look like the results of one of those “What Type of Player Are You” quizzes. Characters can be Achievers, Competitors, Crafters, Explorers or Socializers. Being part of a family is a way to get players with similar interests and motivations together from the start of the game.

Being a part of a family in Alganon is a great way to join with players that share similar interests. For example, power gamers can be in the same family and casual gamers can be in their own family… Every family has its own chat channel that all family members can freely participate in. This channel is automatically “made active” when you log into the game.

Your character’s family does not impact his abilities. However, each family will have merchants that sell “heirloom” items that affect his appearance. These include tabards, clothing and non-combat pets.

Pretty Pictures

Alganon has an art style that is reminiscent of World of Warcraft with its cartoony structures and characters. However as I played the game, one thing that struck me was just how pretty the landscape was. The colors and textures are great and the water effects really brought the world to life.

Another item of note are the excellent, hand-drawn world maps.

Quests

Quests in Alganon are nothing new: You travel to a quest hub, pick up all the relevant quests at the hub, then travel into the wilderness with instructions to kill 20 foozles, or collect 10 motley hides. Once done, you return to the hub, get your rewards, rinse and repeat until ultimately, one of the NPCs gives you a task that involves walking to the next hub. It’s not a bad system… it is just the same system. Unfortunately, in my brief time in Alganon, I didn’t see any quests besides kill and fetch quests — no escorts or scripted events. As it stands the quest system is serviceable, but nothing special.

However, the developers are close to finalizing a system for “dynamic quests” that

check for multiple different character attributes (or even account or world-wide attributes) and change a player’s available quests based on these criteria. This allows for us to design quests that, based on player choices and the state of the world, are different for each player. This system allows us to not only setup simple quest chains, but also to create a system where custom quests are available based on player choice.

I did not see evidence of dynamic quests when I was playing, but mmocrunch has been told that the system is in place, but the developers are trying to determine the best way to use the system without gating players from certain quests and rewards. (Personally, if you have an innovative technology such as this one, I say “Gate Away!!”)

Crafting

I have to admit to just scratching the surface of crafting in Alganon. On the surface, it is pretty similar to World of Warcraft. You can choose a gathering skill such as mining, or skinning and take a crafting skill to go with it. I picked skinning and leather working on my ranger. As you find nodes, or kill creatures, you can gather raw materials from them which increases your skill level, which in turn allows you to gather from higher grade nodes. Each gathering skill comes with some basic refining recipes you can use on the raw materials to create items that are used by the crafting professions and also raises your skill level without the hassle of finding nodes. Once you have some materials, you open your crafting skill window and see the recipes there. If you have the materials, just press a button and you will create the desired item — no crafting station required.

The Crafting Is Familiar

Unfortunately, I don’t have more insight into how crafting fits into the overall economy, or how useful the gear is compared to quest rewards and drops. It seems to be similar, but more involved than WoW’s system, with a lot more interim combines, and more crossover between crafting professions (you need to buy widgets from a tailor to create something with leatherworking). Higher level crafters on the beta chat seemed to be happy with the system, indicating that the gear was at least moderately useful compared to what you could find adventuring.

Deities and Crusades

At some point during your character’s career, he will be asked to throw in with a deity. Deities form another type of faction in Alganon and each provides its followers with additional quests, items and abilities. In addition, deities will lead their followers into battle to conquer territory and further their agendas. All that sounds cool, but no more so than any other quest giver and PvP premise. What makes Alganon’s idea interesting is that the deities in question won’t be abstract constructs, but actual characters you can interact with in-game. Even more astounding is that Quest Online plans to have the deities controlled by live GMs.

In ALGANON, gods won’t just be legends, they will walk the lands. Many players will be able to see and interact with their Deity directly, as they are controlled by in-house staff hired specifically to role-play within the world. When the Crusades are added, players will be able to fight along side their deities in these massive battles between the two factions, and receive powers, teachings and knowledge from their chosen deity.

If they can pull that off and make this kind of epic interaction a regular occurrence, that would go a long way to setting Alganon apart from the crowded pack of fantasy MMOs on the market today.

Is It Ready for Release?

Alganon releases the end of October, less than a week away. I played through the early levels and can tell you that the game is playable and I did not have trouble with extreme lag, or any crashes. There are bugs, like in pretty much every MMO at release, but nothing that will get in the way of you playing the game.

On beta chat, I did hear that some of the classes were getting reworked and I know that my ranger’s ability tree had many places where the abilities offered either weren’t that inspiring, or made little sense. For instance, through level 12, I still had abilities that gave bonuses to powers I didn’t have yet. Other abilities gave 1% cost reductions to powers that cost about 30 focus. Expect the ability trees to be reworked either before release, or soon afterwards.

Just Another WoW Clone?

A lot has been made on various gaming forums and even in beta chat that Alganon is nothing more than an unabashed WoW clone. You have two factions, with exclusive races (including elves with Popeye forearms) doing battle. You have a skill system, a combat system and a crafting system that could have been lifted straight from WoW. Hey, the “bad guy” starting area is even arid and blindingly orange!

Not the Barrens Again!

Here’s the thing, I don’t think anyone who had played it will argue with the fact that at first glance, Alganon looks a heck of a lot like “just another WoW clone.”  In fact, I am not sure the developers would argue that fact either. Alganon’s design philosophy seems to be to shamelessly borrow aspects of other successful games, mix them together in proper proportion and then add a dash of “don’t fix what ain’t broke.”  Toss in a desire to listen to their players, focus on what is fun about MMOs and maybe add a couple of neat ideas into the formula and you end up with Quest Online’s upcoming release.

I had a chance to level a couple characters through the first 12 levels of Alganon. For the first four or five levels, I was bored. My ranger played a lot like an early paladin in WoW — auto-attack and hit my seal every so often. However, after that first dry period, I got my first good damaging skill, as well as a heal and I started to fight creature that could cut into my hit point bar. I made it to the first village, picked up my gathering and crafting skills and started to skin my kills. I found myself planning out some studies, loading up on the shorter combat studies and saving the 1-day “furs and skins” study (which improves the crafting materials I could work with) for when I was offline.

It grew on me…

Yes, Alganon is a WoW clone. It is also an Eve Online clone… and an Everquest clone… and I think there is a true desire among Alganon’s developers to be a responsive development team and add something new to the mix with their Dynamic Quests and Deity system. Can they pull any of that innovative stuff off? I don’t know. In today’s MMO market, and with the climate hostile to new games, I would say the odds are against them. But how can’t you root for the guy who promises to get you wading into a massive battle with your GM-controlled god at your side?

Should I Try Alganon?

I think you should give Alganon a shot if

• You like WoW, or EQ2, but have seen it all and would like a fresh start with all new content.
• You are thinking of returning to a fantasy MMO, but have played out all the classes and would like something new to see.
• You want to get in on the ground floor of a game.
• You want to be part of a small community with more direct contact with the dev team.
• You like WoW, but think the community stinks.
• You like WoW, or EQ2, but think the game has gone downhill in the past couple of years.

Alganon is not for you if

• You are looking for some massive innovation that will give you that “first game ever” feeling again.
• You are hooked on fast, flashy combat such as is found in CoX and Champs Online.
• You are happy with WoW, or EQ2… if so, there is nothing to see here (unless they implement some of their killer features).

The great Sun Tzu, father of modern journalism, once said in his treasured writings: start with a Mime and you can’t go wrong. Of course I just made that up, and I assure you that the WoW-killing Mime is not yet with us. We’ll leave mimes and memes to rest for a moment, and venture over into the underworld of Hype.

Hype in the MMO industry isn’t all unlike hype in other industries like Music and Cinema. People anxiously await the latest release from their favorite artist, film-maker or actor with some level of anticipation, and this “anticipation” can be roughly translated into “Hype”. Measuring hype over a large fan base isn’t an exact science, of course, so what it comes down to really is a persons impression of the level of hype via various mediums.

I speak for many people when I say that the hype for Age of Conan was absolutely insane. Of course, this could have been one of the reasons for its ultimate demise, a point I actually didn’t cover in my “Post Mortem Analysis” – to put it lightly, the game “didn’t live up to the hype“. People were writing and posting and going nuts over the prospect of finally getting to enter into the Hyborean frontier, possibly under the false impression that the entire game of Age of Conan was as polished and “fun” as the open beta area, and possibly because they hadn’t experienced major MMO released since the failure of Vanguard a year before.

People can debate the reason that Age of Conan was hyped so much all day: whether it was the possibility for a revolutionary “Next Gen” MMO to finally be released, a mainstream MMO that was built around the promise of PVP combat, or people longing for a game that catered more towards a mature, adult audience. Funcom even took the phrase “There is no such thing as bad publicity” to a whole new level by trying to piss off and alienate the majority of their loyal playerbase by trying to make a buck or two out of the Open Beta. Even trying to scam 5 bucks out of people to play a beta wasn’t enough to scare most people away.

New domains were registered, new blogs were created, and people spent countless hours pouring over beta videos, deciding what classes to play, and trying to get a “feel” for the game. People started throwing terms around like “Wow Killer” and “Finally, a PVP based MMO!”. Theory-crafting was rampant, alliances and guilds formed, and at release, roughly 800,000 people rushed into the world, satisfying this primal urge to experience something they’ve truly anticipated.

Needless to say, Age of Conan let down the majority of players, on a larger scale than Tabula Rasa or even Vanguard: Saga of Brad McQuaid. Age of Conan was marketed towards a somewhat niche set of MMO demographics: adult content and a PVP oriented game. Without argument, the game has completely failed on the latter point, though it somewhat succeeded on the first – it kept its “M” rating, you get to see breasts, and the level of violence is unparalleled in any MMO on the market.

This brings us to Mythics upcoming beast Warhammer Online. It is my personal opinion that the hype level of Warhammer is less than Age of Conan, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. People were so aching for some new MMO blood on the market, especially PVPers, that Conan had a distinct advantage of being “first”. In general, it seems people are much more cautious when considering Warhammer. Not that the internets has any shortage of fan sites or ongoing blogs about WAR – there are far more of these than there were for Conan. Warhammer has a clear advantage of using a very established Intellectual Property, meaning the amount of information and fan interest is already, by default, higher than Conan.

This might change once Warhammer Open Beta hits this weekend. Things really took off for Conan once the open beta disaster was underway – while the previews for the game itself were positive, the methods that Funcom used to both distribute and charge for access to the Open Beta caused a huge uproar in the collective MMO sphere, thus generating even more attention and/or interest to the game. Warhammer has taken a far more professional and less controversial route by not charging for Open Beta access, distributing the beta client on their dime (or via partner and fan sites) and generally being very open and forthcoming discussing problems and issues with their upcoming game. It’s not easy to tell players that 1/8 of their playable classes won’t make release, and only 1/3 of the proposed major cities will be there.

Conan might have had the upper hand with this “first MMO excitement” – but Mythic was clearly happy letting Funcom “pave the way” and learn from their mistakes. In fact, Mark Jacobs and crew have done almost the polar opposite of Funcom in many regards: calculated delays, cancellation instead of inclusion of sub-par game content, and overall a very professional and stable open beta platform.

Without a doubt, the hype level for Warhammer Online is about to peak next week once the Open Beta is up and running. And, while any game is susceptible to being over-hyped or “not living up to the hype” – I think that for the most part, due to the failure of Age of Conan, people will expect less overall from the Mythic team and from Warhammer Online. Using this logic, the failure of Age of Conan will be directly tied to the success of Warhammer Online in the first few months due to players overall caution and lower expectations going into a game.

I don’t want to try and downplay Warhammer Online potentially being a good, epic, long lasting game: for a PVP wacko like myself who got tired of killing sad AI MOBS 10 years ago in Everquest, WAR could offer a PVP MMO experience that could rival the fun factor of DAoC many years ago. Sure, it might just be WoW 2.0: PVP Reloaded, but it still beats Blizzards joke of an “e-sport” (emphasis on quotes) even if Warhammer PVP/RVR ends up being a frontier zerg fest. As long as there is an Emain Macha in Warhammer, people will want to PVP, and PVP in any open environment is highly preferable to the controlled and instanced PVP battlegrounds of both WoW and AoC.

So, what do my readers think? Is the Warhammer hype less or more than Conan? Has Mythic done well in their attempts to hype the game? Are people really going crazy and I’m just missing it? Do tell.

Review: Warhammer Preview Weekend

For this entry I am going to try something new and take a break from ranting about the usual MMO debacles. Instead, I am going to give my impressions of the Warhammer Preview Weekend from the perspective of an MMO veteran, guild leader, and a gamer coming off the of the AoC disaster.

As a guild leader, I and my members were recently burned badly by the Funcom bullshit.  I approach Warhammer Online with heavy scrutiny while trying to recover from the burns Funcom gave me and my members.

Character creation is nothing to write home about honestly.   I found it to be quite lackluster, and I could see where this could give people a negative first impression.   I wasn’t thrilled about my option, but like most MMO’s, my armor covered me up after a few levels and it became a non-issue to me at least.   I guess it could be justified that a lack of options helps performance in large scale PvP, I am not going to speculate to the validity of this theory, but after AoC’s performance I could see it having merit.

The user interface is probably one of most glaring similarities to World of Warcraft that will catch your eye.  It literally shares an almost identical positioning and style to WoW, which could be viewed as a positive if you liked this interface.  The good news is the user interface is fairly customizable, and Mythic has left the door open to 3rd party UI mods which will surely be in abundance.

As a guild leader, I am extremely thrilled to see a real Guild Interface akin to that of Everquest 2.  Guild Functionality has always been important to me, and Age of Conan’s left a lot to be desired.  The Warhammer Guild UI offers multiple tabs showing roster that is sortable, and gives me the ability to make notes next to each name to labels alts and such.   It also gives me the ability to rename all my ranks, set their permissions, an unlockable calender, a log showing me recent events, and guild battle standard options.  Guilds level up through the members PvPing and new functionality becomes unlocked.

The graphics in this game have been the subject of a lot of debate among the community.  Obviously no one will contest that Age of Conan has far better graphics, but these graphics are a lot better then WoW IMO.   Are they cutting edge?  Not be any means, but they get the job done.   Again I think some will argue that the games graphics will make it accessible to a wider audience, and help performance in RvR.  I do think some people are giving this game a lot more heat than it deserves in this department, once I turned the resolution up, it looked good, and in large scale PvP I ran smooth as a baby’s ass.

Character Customization comes to you in a variety of ways.  While I found the creation process lacking, as you progress through the game will you see that there are some ways for you to tweak your looks and skills to fit your playstyle.  First you will be able to tailor your “Tactics Abilities” to suit your needs.  These are basically passive abilities that you can put into the bottom right of the screen to enhance your character.  They deliberately limit the number you can use at a given time to force you to decide what to best use in a situation.   These can be changed at any time however, and I think you can cycle through layouts of these as easy as you cycle your hotbars depending on your situation.

There are also “Moral Abilities” which remind me of TP moves from FFXI.   The longer you fight and stay alive, the more jacked up your character gets.   He is able to then perform super moves that get stronger as he gets more moral built up.  These can be interchanged again to fit your playstyle, and add another layer of tactics to the combat.

The RvR rewards come in the ways of both gear and points.  The gear is strong enough to make it a viable alternative to gear earned through PvE, and better in some cases.  The points are spent much like talent points or AA points.  If you played DAOC, you are very familiar with their PvP reward system, which is fully functional and in the game unlike a certain rival game which still has yet to give an ETA on their system.

One other aspect of this game in regards to customizing your appearance in the use of armor Dyes.  This was one of the better features of DAOC that I am shocked was never stolen by more recent MMOs.  It gives you the ability to make yourself look a little different and it gives guilds a chance to add uniformity to their members.  Changing your armor colors can be done very easily by visiting a merchant.   A nice dressing room screen comes up where you will be able to see the colors before you buy them.

The PvE aspect of the game is pretty run of the mill from what we have seen in recent MMOs.  The game follows the same lame quest format of collecting X amount of dingleberries, killing Y amount of orcs.  Nothing to write home about honestly.  The game does break Quest mold from recent games by adding public quests.   Doing these will get you rep in that local area, and this rep can be used to claim rewards, which are usually very good if your rep gets maxed.   Luckily, maxing out your rep in a given area does not seem to take very long at all, and the public quests are always fun as long as other people are there.   They can be compared to the Besieged Mode found in FFXI where you are rewarded for your contribution, and acts a nice diversion from the collection quests.  At the end of the day, the PvE is just a means to an end, and that end is the RvR.

The RvR is where this game really shines.  Finally I feel like I am getting the RvR that World of Warcraft promised me but never delivered on.  You can PvP from level 1.  You get exp from PvP, and quests to kill people in PvP.   This helps makes PvP a viable way of leveling if you so chose.  The games does have a battleground type system called Scenarios, which honestly I am not a fan of being an overworld guy myself.   To their credit though, they are well thought out and usually contain some sort of interesting twist instead of the makeshift deathmatches we got in AoC.  I hope Mythic will make world PvP enticing enough to minimize the desire to play in these.  On the flip side, if you play on a server where the population is imbalanced, these do provide a level playing field somewhat.  If you are under leveled, the game gives you a buff to your level to help you remain useful, but a true level 10 is stronger than a buffed level 10 because he has better gear and new spells that a level 5 won’t have.

The castle sieges are very well done.   Finally we have real capturable objectives to fight over, and they are meaningful in the struggle to push your enemy back to the city gates.   Siege weapons are easy to get and funner to use.  Giant cannons that put you in an FPS view with a crosshair to bark fire on the oceans of enemies inside the castle or outside.  Rocks can be seen flying through the air from catapults, and it really adds a wildcard to the battle as well as making things a bit more chaotic in a good way.  It also helps give melee something to do in situations where enemies are out of reach.  After playing these sieges, I have no desire to go into the scenarios, and hopefully the population who plays will see it the same way.

Most of the PvP is group on group.  Do not expect to be some WoW superhero 1 shotting people like a God.  Combat in this game takes a bit longer, and as such I think a bit more skill.   If I wanted to 1 shot everyone I would stick with Call of Duty 4.  You feel like you are a unit in an RTS game, no one person is so superpowerful.   This makes it a very team oriented game, and hopefully the Community will be good.  Some have complained about the combat speed and a global cool down, but honestly it never occurred to me until I started reading whining on the forums.  The combat to me felt interesting, tactical, and I was not spamming the same ability over and over like other games.

In conclusion, the game is fun even though it lacks major Innovation.   First and foremost I think that fun is why we play.  The game delivers on its promises.  Mark Jacobs at Mythic has been honest about talking about flaws and problems with the game and I appreciate his straight talk.   It upset a lot of us with AoC that they were in denial about the game’s missing features and short comings.

This game will live and die by the RvR and the endgame.  The RvR looks amazing, the endgame we won’t know until we get there.  If it is anything like DAOC, then hopefully we will have a good RvR MMO that will last us a long time, made by a company that seems to be honest and competent.  I am hoping this game will help heal the burns Funcom gave me, my guild, and so many others like me.  Only time will tell.

Paragus

Co-Leader of Inquisition

inqguild.dkpsystem.com