Warhammer: First Impressions 1-5
I’ll get straight into it. I played the Warhammer Open Beta for the first time today. I played a Dark Elf Disciple of Khaine (DoK) and once I got to level 5 I stopped to write this post. This way it will truly be a “First Impressions” post, without the passing of time or levels to water it down. Here we go.
The very first impression I got was that I was a total n00b. At first it felt quite different and a little odd. I’m sure I felt like that about every MMOG I played the very first time but that didn’t prevent me from feeling it again. I had a bit of trouble working out the map *facepalm* which isn’t that hard once you do figure it out. The Tome of Knowledge feels overwhelming at first but once you figure out how to access the stuff you need to know it’s not so bad. I got to level 2 easy enough and by myself, then I duo’d with Kyrana and we did a bunch of stuff together for a couple of levels.
Graphics: I don’t like to compare games to World of Warcraft but I will. Mostly because anyone who has played an MMOG has tried WoW, so it really is the best comparison. Ok, graphics definately have that WoW look. Not quite as colourful and “cartoony” but the Dark Elves of WAR remind me a lot of the Blood Elves of WoW. The game looks good graphically, but I wouldn’t say it’s on the cutting edge of technology. I ran it at 1600×1200 on High Detail.
Characters: The character creation is pretty lame and much like WoW’s. You have a number of faces you can choose from, hair styles and colours, and for the most part that’s it. You can’t change your height or girth or any of your facial features. The models look pretty good, but not amazing. Though something that caught my eye and surprised my was the detail on the characters hands. They are probably the most detailed and realistic pixelated hands I’ve seen. Armour was a bit boring at the low levels and everyone runs around looking the same, though my first upgrades were a huge improvement.
Combat: It’s pretty much your standard fare, nothing new here, though you do need to manage Action Points (think stamina) and in the case of the DoK, Soul Essence (SE). Some spells build SE while others cost SE. I’m too low a level to worry about Morale and Tactics, no doubt they’ll add another level of difficulty to combat. It takes longer to kill things and longer to die then, say, Age of Conan. There’s no one shotting here.
PvE: I won’t say much here. You get a quest and you go kill stuff. Nothing new. It’s not bad, it’s not good, it is what it is.
Public Quests: These are interesting and a bit of a trap. Kyrana and I found ourselves doing the same one three times, and later on I found myself in a group doing another one three times. It’s easy to stumble across one and just hang out, killing mobs and getting rewards. The more you contribute to the PQ the better your reward. I managed to finish 4th and 6th on two occasions and got a nice breastplate out of it.
Realm v Realm (RvR): Kyrana and I headed into the lowbie RvR instance to complete the RvR quest. I was only level 3 and Kyrana was lvl 5 and had been in there before so I was the n00b yet again. This RvR instance felt a lot like Age of Conan’s mini-games, with the exception of not getting one shotted. Even if you got jumped by two players you could hopefully stay upright long enough for the cavalry to arrive. Destruction got their asses handed to them in this encounter unfortunately by what seemed like an awful lot of Swordmasters. My DoK didn’t seem to do a lot of damage against them, but perhaps with a few more levels and a few more skills that might change a little. I would assume that once you get to higher levels and start doing some serious RvR that this area of the game will really shine.
Performance: I didn’t suffer any lag and the server was pretty busy and my settings were up high. I did get stuck in the combat animation a lot after I’d finished combat which was annoying but didn’t really matter. I had a few lockups where my screen would go black and I’d have to bring up the task manager to get out of it. This only happened when I’d been alt-tabbing in and out of the game. I’d have trouble getting back in for a while afterwards. I did notice some tearing when I was in the indoor areas however.
Overall: To be honest, the first level didn’t impress me much and I was worried that I’d wasted my time, money, and energy on another “meh” MMOG. There was nothing new in PvE and combat was same/same. But after playing it for a little while I really started to enjoy it. I had to log out to do some real life things and I was thinking about logging back in the entire time. I still need to try out the Disciple of Khaine a bit more before I give a review of that class, but I will give one in due course. As for the rest of the game, I’ll keep you posted.
Comments
Comment from Kyrana
Time: September 8, 2008, 12:41 pm
I can pretty much echo everything Cal said. However, I have to say the RvR was a LOT more fun than I thought it would be. I was a bit worried about that aspect, simply because I don’t think of myself as a rabid pvp’er. But once I got into the scenario, it was FUN. I found this competitive edge coming out in me that I didn’t know was there, and it was very satisfying playing against other living, thinking players. My first foray in, Destruction won a very lop-sided victory. It was sort of a capture-the-flag type scenario, where you had to capture these two…well…flags (LOL) at two points in the zone. My first group stayed together very well and was actually organized, complete with healers doing their thing and keeping the tanks and dps up and fighting. The second group, which Cal and I did together was a bit more…scattered. The Destruction group kept wandering off in different directions, and Order was able to pick us off one at a time, fairly easily. Caliga did his best healing, but not much anyone can do when 8 Order guys are poking two of you with sharp, pointy things.
All in all, I had a good time, and I’m enjoying the game. It -feels- different to me on a gut level, which I know sounds lame, but at the same time, I’m enjoying that. I like that noob feeling because it means I’m seeing something new. I think there’s lots of entertainment in it, which is what I’m looking for. 
My biggest pet peeves are cosmetic and rp-related, really. I want more character customization. The selections are limited for face and hair options. Everyone is the same height as well. I noticed that different classes get different hair and facial options. I’m not sure why Mythic didn’t allow each RACE to have more options as a whole, rather than chopping them up by class. It would give the player a feeling of more variety, and it wouldn’t cost them anything because they wouldn’t have to make any new options. I don’t miss the slider bars all that much, simply because the slider bars I’ve seen never really seemed to make all that much difference to me. That said, I’d like more customization options with tattoos, jewelry, scars, etc–again–there are plenty in the game, but they’re divided by CLASS not race. What’s up with that?
As an rp’er, I want to be able to sit down. *sigh* There are over 70 emotes in play, but no option to sit. I guess they figure people at war never sit down or something. I keep feedbacking this and hoping someday–SOME DAY–Kyrana will be able to rest on her backside. 
*hugs Caliga* That was fun, though, wasn’t it?
Comment from 
caliga
Time: September 8, 2008, 3:56 pm
@Openedge
The first two levels my opinion was “it’s ok”. But by level five my opinion was “hmm, this is pretty cool”.
Perhaps as I go along that “pretty cool” will turn into “awesome” …. or not. Stay tuned
Comment from Openedge1
Time: September 9, 2008, 7:48 am
@Kyrana
Also no /dance and no /kiss.
My wife took this as an ultimatum that Mythic did not wish for her to exist in their world (lol)
Yea…WAR is not for RP’ers I am afraid. The visual quality does not lend itself to that. The quality of the emotes do not either. Some did not even have animations.
But, we also knew PvE was no focused on enough (based on those kill x quests), so, all in all, I hope RvR and PvP is enough for players.
I know RP’ers will always make the most of the situation, and I hope that works out for you guys!
Cheers
Comment from Kyrana
Time: September 9, 2008, 10:33 am
@Openedge, 50% of my rp happens right inside my own depraved noggin (via stories, journals, brainstorming ideas, etc.), so thankfully I don’t need emotes to enjoy myself. But yes, I was a bit disappointed with the lack of rp-friendly emotes & customization. However, having a dedicated rp server makes up for an awful lot of that.
Comment from
caliga
Time: September 9, 2008, 3:46 pm
The /dance I can do without anyway, it’s just a comic relief emote IMO. Things like /sit being absent, and a bunch of others, make it a bit more challenging, but much like Kyrana said, most of it is in my head anyway. Like all MMO’s this is by no means the finished product and perhaps we’ll see player housing and better emotes introduced down the line. Assuming it can stand the test of time. As of right now though, is there a better option?
The thing I notice the most is the absence of the Dark Elf tank. I hope we see that make it into the game soon, sooner than AoC PvP update.
Comment from Openedge1
Time: September 8, 2008, 8:10 am
So, based on your initial steps into the world, you would say the game is
“Ok”
Right?
It is not that it “sucked”, but after coming from AoC and Guild Wars, it did not feel “Really Good”.
I had a brief write up on it, but, I think I plan to put some more info in words on my blog later.
I hope the beta goes a little better for you than it did for me.
Good luck