WAR - beta review

[Azurai]

I got a chance to play in beta due to my FP sub, so I DLed it fully expecting it to suck. Much to my surprise it's easily the most fun MMO I've ever played out of the box and definately second only to WoW in many ways.

Graphics - You can tell they took WoWs low system reqs to heart. It looks good, you can make distinctions between everything but its not amazing. The art direction is very Warhammer stylized, which is good. Everything is big because it's full scale not just to make it look huge, which is also good. There seems to be no Tardis treatment like you find in WoW often. Animations are second only to WoW, which is probably why I find the game second only to WoW. They aren't overly exciting but they are deliberate and don't look like someone gave a 3 year old retard baby kinetics software to do walking animations.

Sound - OK. Not much to say, music is decent, sound effects are good and no glaring holes here that I've found so far. A good deal of voice acting for PQs and such.

UI - good. Out of the box completely movable and customizable in game which is nice. It's not perfect but it does have good response time, comparable to WoWs (but not quite as good). What I mean by this is that in WoW you can press mortal strike, and it immediately goes off (barring no errors like oor, pacification, rage, etc.) and this is largely true in WAR. Lag seems to be the biggest culprit as most the time its very responsive. Possibly my biggest problem is the lack of a 'didn't work' sound for the ui wherein if an ability fails you immediately know it by sound as opposed to keeping track of your ui bars to see if it went off. Due to the primitive scrolling combat text things tend to get lost in a storm of numbers so its kinda hard to tell if a dot applied or the ability fizzled in the heat of combat. All stuff I expect to be remedied by UI mods, though.

PvE - fun. Public Quests are basically areas with scripted events that anyone can take part in. They are usually 2-4 stages that involve something like A) kill the soldiers B) kill the LTs C) kill the leader. At the end the top contributors roll random 1000 and then get a contribution bonus and each person gets a loot bag which is slightly randomized but always contains the same item. So, assuming the purple loot bag rewards epic boots, it will award epic boots for every class every time you get the reward bag. In this way it's possible to 'farm' PQs to get a specific upgrade if you need it. Overall very cool implementation. The solo game is the same old 'kill x, do y, deliver z, use a, burn boat q' stuff. However, the theme is very warlike... there's no helping grandma deliver the pie quests here. Its WW2 fantasy style and you're stuck in it. If you approach a pretty cool looking city, there's a fair bet the other side is burning and there's an enemy fleet entrenched on the beach siegeing the down. Also, the quest ui is amazing and the map system is fairly specific, I've never felt the need to alt-tab and find a website.

PvP - amazing. RvR has always been very fun and this is no exception. The great thing is this game is very accessible, so there are tons of noobs. They can cost you a game in great numbers but for the most part a few well played chars can dominate a game. If I had to sum it up I'd say this: Tactical application of force kills people, strategic application of force wins games. Tanks actually tank... there's basically no way to kill a properly geared tank even 10 on 1 with 1-2 good healers behind them. Healers keep everyone alive but themselves. They can survive 1v1 indefinitely pretty much, but if they get 2+ people on them they die. DPS is all about proper application... if you spam attacks you'll never kill anyone unless its basically a 1v1 battle. Burst and coordinated attacks are the only way to knock people out fast enough to make a dent in lines. One of the most interesting mechanics is that taunt effects make you deal 30% more damage to the taunted target (agro for pve and burst for pvp) and detaunt effects give you 50% less damage received from a target (broken if you attack the target). This means 1v1 on say my archmage, I can survive ridiculous punishment from one person just by chain detaunting them for a shield wall like effect.

Classes- let me first say all classes have 2 resource systems. One is action points, basically energy. All basic class abilities use this. Don't expect to run a healer oom in a prolonged fight. Second is morale, which is gained basically when good things around you happen (ie killing enemies). This activates special, powerful abilities with 4 tiers that can do ridiculous things. My most specific info is on order as the good guys are the underdogs in any games workshop production, so I've decided to play them.

High Elves:
Archmage: Fun healing/dps class. Basically take the warlock affliction tree and add druid healing. The extra resource system for these guys is yin/yang style wherein if you cast up to 5 heals in a row your next damage spell does more or becomes instant cast, opposite for healing. This doesn't sound amazing, but for pvp where burst kills someone the super-mind-flay ability they have with 25% damage bonus from a stack of tranquility rapes people. These are the aoe controllers for order, too.

Shadow Warrior: Ranger, no pet. Their unique skills is stances which provide significant bonuses for a specific type of combat- there's one for sniping, one for close combat and one for short range bow attacks. They do high dps, but no burst. They are deadly in combination with other attackers but while they are versatile they really lack any significant ability to finish someone off as they can run away if you're at range or simply turn around and beat your face in if you're close enough to deliver powerful attacks and hunt them down.

Blademaster: tank, deals spirit damage which ignores armor so it is the highest dps tank. Seems to rely on damage absorption magic more than phys mitigation, but they still take tremendous punishment if tank specced. Their unique resource is balance, whereby your combat is basically 1->2->3 with 3 being a uber powerful ability, 2 being a defensive one and 1 being a basic spammable attack.

White Lion: beastmaster. Their attacks do more from behind, so in pve or pvp they do significant damage. In solo pve they do more if their pet is tanking but pet does less and vice versa. They seem to do a high amount of damage, but pets are wonky right now and have trouble following people in certain terrain which makes it annoying. Overall very fun playstyle though, I really like how there's 3 buffs, a pet tank, you tank and balanced. Each one has its own unique abilities for the pet and buff component for you.

Dwarves:

Ironbreaker: Heavy tank. This guy doesn't die. Special is grudge, which is kinda like rage. You can spend it for defensive stuff or save it up to make your attacks do more damage.

Engineer: summoner. You get turrets and ranged attacks. Like the lugian tactician of AC2 without walls. They do decent damage overall but I'm not sure what their point is. The turrets don't seem to do enough, don't expect it to be like TF2 where you need to carefully take one down, you can pretty much just ignore it or 3 shot it as you run by.

Runepriest: priest, basically.

Humans:

Witch Hunter: rogue with a pistol and rapier. You basically build up accusations (aka combo points) with sword attacks then use your pistol execution style to pop someone in the dome. Thematically, a cross between Van Helsing and Boondock Saints. High dps, has a vanish like ability which drains AP over time but no permanent stealth. Well rounded dps, focuses a bit more on dot effects than raw burst like the DE witch does, meaning it does better on tanks and healers overall but isn't quite as punch in 1v1 it seems.

Warrior Priest: Paladin. They have something called Righteous Fury, which is at 250 out of combat but gets used on healing spells. Damage attacks build RF, so in order to keep up the healing in combat you have to be in the middle of it doing damage. If they get in melee range, they're basically unkillable 1v1.

Bright Mage: If you want to one shot someone or literally wipe out an entire enemy team, this is the class to be. They get something called combustion which builds up with each spell cast and at max level it gives 50% crit chance bonus, 100% crit damage bonus and 50% chance to explode (pbaoe that does damage to you, think it hits enemies too but not sure). Proper timing, placement and nuke selection can make an unhindered bright mage 2 shot anything. Do not let these guys or sorceresses cast continually unhindered, or your entire team will die.

Chaos:

Chosen: heavy tank. Offensive auras and supreme defensive capabilities. These guys are nigh unkillable.

Zealot: pure healer for chaos, seen almost none of these guys so can't comment much.

Marauder: they have an offhand arm which changes shape depending on what they want to kill, they're very adaptable hard hitting fighters and a quasi-tank class.

Magus: summoners, they summon demons. Like engineers they seem kinda silly and ineffectual overall, maybe they're late bloomers.

Dark Elves:

Witches: These guys seem to be the highest melee dps class in the game. They're like witch hunters only focused on burst and instant gratification. They too have a vanish type ability and no permanent stealth. Pretty fragile but definitely deadly.

Disciples of Khaine: paladins for the destruction side, they have a similar playstyle to warrior priests only they have more life-drainy type stuff instead of pure heals.

Sorceress: Like the bright mage, these guys blow shit apart. Very deadly. They have a chaos energy bar which is like combustion and seem to be focused more on single target at base than aoe damage like the BM.

Greenskins:

Black Orcs: the dps tank of the destruction side, they do significant damage and have a build-up similar to the blademaster's balance. They are more physical based and as such deal slightly less damage but absorb slightly more than the blademaster.

Squig herder: controls squig pets, 3 types for different circumstances. Basically the WoW BM hunter.

Shaman: Like the archmage only based less on hots and dots and more on direct/channeled effects it seems. They have a waaagh ability much like the archmages' high magic.

[Mirkendargen]

Maybe I just played it too early in beta, or it's something about me personally, but it just didn't hold my attention. Granted, I really hate leveling up in general, and I can't say anything in specific about the game that I thought was bad. It just didn't do it for me.

[Azurai]

Maybe I just played it too early in beta, or it's something about me personally, but it just didn't hold my attention. Granted, I really hate leveling up in general, and I can't say anything in specific about the game that I thought was bad. It just didn't do it for me.

Did you do any pvp? Its available from level 1 and is always really fun. There's I think 30 BGs in the game and a ton of controllable pvp zones which follow in tiers in order to take the enemy capital.

I'd completely agree the game is mediocre to terrible in the long term PvE department (doing PQs or the occasional lair is really fun though) but from PvP its pretty much instant, constant action in different areas and scenarios. Really fun.

[Meldred]

Yep the game is way better than wow could ever be.

[Mirkendargen]

Yeah I did some PVP. Honestly though, I don't really like the "battleground" notion in WoW or other games. It feels too FPS-ish, and I don't like FPS's. The pvp (when I played) also felt very....loose. I'm not sure how else to describe it, and I know that's a vague/lame term. Like I didn't have a "tight" control on my character.

[Maverek]

what race/class/server are you all on?