MMO Gamers

Firstly, let me make it perfectly clear that this is not a post about environmental issues.  It is a Warhammer post about one aspect of the game.  For simplicities sake, let’s say that Warhammer has two main parts to it.  There is the PvP side, known as Realm vs Realm, or RvR, and there is the PvE side; Player vs Environment, or “killing mobs”.

The RvR is quite good.  Not perfect, but good.  Keep assaults are a lot of fun, and even undefended it can be satisfying taking them back and getting your XP and Renown.  Scenarios can be fun also, though some of them are so awful that I refuse to do them in favour of others.  As much as I enjoy RvR, I don’t want to do RvR every time I log in, or for five or six hours straight.  This brings us to PvE.

I’ve never been a huge fan of questing, anyone who reads this blog regularly will know that.  I don’t hate quests, and some I like, such as the Heritage Quests in EQ2.  I don’t really mind the “kill 10 X” or the “deliver this message” quests, when they’re done for a point.  The Fed-Ex quests are a good way to send you to new zones or introduce you to a new NPC.

I can’t quite figure out what it is about Warhammer’s quests, but I struggle to bring myself to do them.  I just find them so dissatisfying.  The XP isn’t that great and the rewards, if you get any, aren’t of any use to you.  The quest directives are often vague, but not in a good way, and many of them send you to a PQ, so completing the quest solo is difficult if not impossible. 

In fact, I don’t like much of WAR’s PvE at all.  The PQ’s are a good way to grind XP and get good loot, so those I don’t mind.  A grind never really bothered me when there’s a prize at the end of it.  And with PQ’s you get a chance at a chest as well as the Influence rewards you get for it.  Problem with PQ’s though is that you need to be in a guild and/or organise a small warband to be able to complete all stages.

I decided to check out Mt Gunbad, a Tier 3 dungeon, to see what that was like.  I’m a bit of a dungeon crawl fan; it’s how I like my PvE.  EQ2 had a lot of great dungeons and so did Vanguard.  I’d been to Saccelum in the Inevitable City and wasn’t at all impressed.  So I headed to Gunbad in a group of four of us; a Black Orc as the tank, my lovely Witch Elf Kyrana, a DPS specced Disciple and me as the healer.  And I wasn’t impressed with that dungeon either.  This surprises me because Dark Age of Camelot had some great dungeons.  There’s a Tier 4 dungeon that I need to check out, Bastion Stair or something, when I hit T4.  I’m eager to get to T4, I’m getting a little tired of T3 now, and I want to see what this game really has to offer.