MMO Gamers

Ok, I haven’t gotten into Warhammer yet but Kyrana has.  She posted a comment about her experiences but I decided to make a post of it, mainly because I can’t think of, nor do I have, anything to write myself.  So here it is, first impressions by Kyrana.

Ok, Cal asked me to post my first impressions. Please bear in mind these are just my off the cuff take on the game from brief look this morning. I will hopefully be able to add more after I’ve played a bit more.

Character Create:

Not bad. The choices of faces are a little disappointing to me. I like a bit more variety in looks if at all possible. I was able to get a decent character model created, though, so I am satisfied. The hairstyles are a bit limited as well, but there’s a good choice of skin colors. You get a large selection of tattoos/scars to choose from, which gives you another way to make your character more unique and your “own.”

Initial gameplay:

I’m not going to spoil it for you, but it’s pretty straightforward getting started. Much like any MMO, really, with diving right into your first quest line. Of course, it was absolutely mobbed this morning, so there was a bit of a wait to get some of the mobs, simply because of the sheer numbers of people camping them. But I never had to wait overly long, so I did not get frustrated.

The “feel” of the game is quite different from anything I’ve ever played. It’s more stylized (read: cartoony) than EQ2, but has a darker feel than LOTRO did. The gameworld is quite beautiful and well done. Overall, it’s a nice blend of styles for me–sort of like EQ2 meets WoW (guessing from what I’ve seen of WoW, as I’ve not played). It’s not as “real” as AoC, but at the same time–it’s a different world, so it “fits”. I hope that makes sense.

I’m still trying to work out the combat art thing. It’s limited in the beginning because you only get 2-3 starting abilities, which is fine, but trying to track your “bloodlust” points etc, so you can use your “big hit” is tricky. The combat seems “typical” to me. It does not have the combo system AoC did…it’s much more like EQ2. I have not seen a lack of responsiveness or slowness though, which is good. I read they’d been trying to fix that problem. Combat animation is just so-so. It’s nothing spectacular to look at, but it’s not horrible either. I’d just give the animations a “meh.”

You have to buy your skills as you progress in level. As you get mastery points, you get to put them into the tree you want to pursue with your Career. (Career Mastery) It’s kind of like EQ2’s AA line in that respect, where you get to choose variations of how you want to pursue your class.

The UI is fantastic. You have so many options to customize it, you can make it look however you want it to. I love this. I can’t foresee even needing a custom UI in the future because this one is so versatile. Big bonus points for that!

Quests–very detailed and good use of the map. You get a general area marked on your map to help you find your way to where the mobs are, which is nice. For those people who like to figure it out on their own, these areas do not appear on the mini-map, so you never have to refer to the hints. Even though the game was very crowded when I logged in, the respawns were quick enough that I didn’t have to wait long to kill what I needed. Actually “accepting” the quests and turning them in seems to have more “clickies” than I’m used to, but it’s a style thing and not an issue for me. It’s still the same quest types as other games–kill x number of these, go talk to this person, etc, but there’s only so much you can do to make a quest, right? I’d say this was solid–as long as there are different types of mobs, different levels of difficulty etc of the quests down the road.

The public quest that I did was a LOT of fun. You get to a zone, the public quest starts and BOOM! Immediate action, people working together–very fast and furious and lots of fun. This is something totally new for me, and I think it will add a lot to the game experience for me. It’s like…instagroup. Even though you are soloing, you don’t get that “lonely” feel, if that makes sense.

I have not tried to do any RvR scenarios yet. I will hopefull get to that tonight.

I know that it will take some time to truly get the accurate idea of the game, but so far, so good. It’s fun, it’s entertaining–can’t ask for much more than that except good rp–and I know that is already happening. So I feel lucky.

More to come…

EDIT:  Check out some screenshots.