First Impressions: Warhammer Online

by Seyon, in Games: First Impressions, Warhammer Online (1 Comment)

If you would have asked me months ago about Warhammer Online, I would have mumbled something about a miniature tabletop game followed quickly by “WOW clone.” I didn’t really have a high opinion of the Warhammer universe at all, and probably even a lower opinion of the MMO based off of it. I first heard about it en masse in the Age of Conan forums, usually in regards to what “leaving” people were going to go play. The biggest issue I had with the game was that I have always been an “Eye Candy Whore” – a game will fail to even acquire my interest if the visuals aren’t there. The screenshots did not impress me with the cartoon-like look, which is related to the second issue I had: I disliked the character designs. I am told that the World of Warcraft character designs and world are, large in part, based (stolen?) from Warhammer. I can see the similarities.

I really didn’t do much tracking or researching of the game. We had multiple opportunities to play the beta but we chose not to. Regardless of the reservations I had about the game, I had friends that wanted to play the game and fun play with friends can overpower my worries.

After a long back and forth process, I ended up playing a Sorceress and Wolf chose a melee healer class, Discipline of Khaine. I do need to preface this article with the fact that I went into this game not wanting to PvP. I realize the oddity of playing a game that is sold as a PvP game for just the PvE.

We started playing the game on the official release day, not either of the early start days. Installation took a while along with registration so I was ready to play when it finally started up. First up was creating my character. There are not as many customization options as I would have liked, truly tiny compared to some MMOs we’ve tried recently. The game started up and immediately I can hear the sound of war. That was a recurring theme through the early chapters; you could always hear the sound of fighting in the background. The interface I’m told is similar to WOW. Wolf was quick to find the custom interface options, which are very nice. The level of customization you can have for your interface is immense. The beginner quests are simple and straight forward, with lots of backstory along with a summary of exactly what needs to be done at the end. There are no indicators on the map for the direction you need to head and that took getting used to, but if you open your big map you can clearly see where the region for the quest is. The quests are different in that they are not tiny independent quests. They vary in length with some quests lasting throughout your trek to level 40.

Visuals in-game are better than any of the screenshots I had seen. While still cartoon like, they still conveyed a since of realism. Characters of a class all looked the same though from a distance. I was able to run the game on the highest graphics setting with only an occasional hiccup.

Thr early zone was split almost down the center with the west side being Dark Elves and the east side being High Elves. Through normal gameplay in this zone you don’t cross paths with your other player characters of your nemesis’ race. Your side is then split up into chapters which are then split up even further into towns and camps which act as quest hubs.

We pushed along doing quests, which had a noticeable evil flare to them (often as a Dark Elf you find yourself collecting heads and affixing them to spikes). Then we came to a public quest. As it was explained to me, I have never really heard of anything like it before. Soon after we jumped in and took part of the first public quest ourselves. The very first one has you fighting a large dragon. Immediately, I fell in love with the concept. For those without any idea what I’m talking about, try to imagine a light dungeon with objectives and rewards but one that any class can take part in. And you can join and leave it at anytime without really hurting those still playing. Early ones don’t take that long and you can get good rewards for them. If you are there for the completion of the public quest (PQ) and you contributed throughout the PQ, you get a number based on your contribution. Add to that a random number roll and you get your PQ value. Depending on how this number compares to other people who participated, you could earn a loot bag. The most common is the green loot bag which gives you the option to choose between a nice green for your class, some crafting supplies or just gold. It’s a really rewarding and fun element that makes you wonder why other MMOs haven’t tried this yet.

From one of the early camps, we were able to choose our crafting and gathering professions. I liked the fact that you could choose this early in your career compared to other MMOs that make crafting a high level time sink. You literally can be crafting at level 1 if you were so inclined. You can choose between two crafting professions and two gathering professions. With crafting you have apothecary, which is potion making, and talisman making, which are added to items to boast stats. The gathering skills are cultivating, magical salvaging, scavenging and butchering. Magical salvaging is for taking fragments out of uncommon and above items and is almost required for talisman makers. Scavenging provides stuff for both talisman making and apothecary, while butchering and cultivating are for apothecary. The potions are much more useful than the talismans but going down the path of potion making makes for some inventory headaches.

One of the other things you notice quickly in the game is the Tome of Knowledge. This is not easy to explain. Think of it as a book about your adventure through the game. It keeps track of quests, records all kills (PvE and PvP) and tells you the history and lore of races and places. And that’s only a fraction of what it does; in a weird way, its kind of a mini-game too. When you go around and do quests and kill creatures, you receive unlocks in your tome. These unlocks could be achievements which you could put in your brag list that other characters can see when they inspect you. The unlock could be a title that appears below your name when other people look at you. They could be trophies which are objects that you can put on your armor to make yourself look unique. They could even make your character better through tome tactic unlocks.

The first impression of the game is that I like it. The game does enough things right while bringing new concepts to MMOs. It does have some things that it will need to improve on, but so far those are minor. I would recommend it to any friend based on what I’ve played so far. That may change as we get farther into the game, but for now, I’m enjoying my time in Warhammer Online.