PQ For Me And You
More interesting than RvR (for me, at least) are the Public Quests. Here's an example: I'm sent to kill some Annoying Squigs on a quest (with Squiggle, my Squig Herder). When I arrive at the killing field, the game tells me that the area also happens to be a Public Quest called Ugrog's Rage (Oh, that giant troll thing!) where the first objective is killing quite of few of the buggers. I notice another player in the area, and invite them to a party.
Parties are automatically labeled as open, and in the upper left there is an icon you can click at any time to see what parties are available, how far they are from you, and what they are doing. Everyone in the area knows we're here doing this PQ, and we can keep inviting people, too. Even players not in our party (or eventual warband, if enough show up—that's a group of up to four parties) are helping the cause.
Next we have to collect Ugrog some beer kegs, but there are still enemies to deal with as well. Finally, once he's good and boozed up he'll bust down the door to this dwarven fortress and the bosses first send minions charging, before finally running out themselves.
Most PQs seem to have three stages, and when it's over you get a loot drop (or not, if there were a lot of people involved) depending on how well you participated. The drop is a grab bag where you get to choose one item, and there is always something you can use, whether it's armor or a crafting material. If you help out a lot, you also get tons of influence (points—a bar that fills for each chapter of the story) and are able to pick up influence rewards from the rally master in town.
I love PQs. It's a great excuse to get a party together and once you have one you can just roam the zone from PQ to PQ. Or you can run one a few times in a row if it's crowded, since the more consecutive attempts you put in, the higher your roll modifier bonus will be.
I Made This For You
Gathering and Crafting skills are acquired in the chapter 2 zones for each race. Of the four gathering skills, Cultivating is definitely the most compelling, since instead of just picking over corpses or breaking down unwanted gear into magical essences, you're growing seeds. The process starts by opening the Cultivating window and choosing a plot. You place a seed and then add soil, water, and nutrients as a timer runs down. I didn't get far enough to see what sort of effect upgrading your soil types and watering cans would have, but you definitely run into higher quality ingredients as you go (or if you buy them from a Scavenger.)
So far there are two crafting systems in the game, one for making potions and one for making talismans. Talismans seem more difficult due to the rarer ingredients required, whereas many potion ingredients are readily available through butchery or cultivating. For that reason, I spent a lot more time with my Apothecary characters.
To make a potion you need a container, a main ingredient, and supporting ingredients for stabilization and added effects. For instance, you can turn regular green healing potion into pink healing-over-time by adding an ingredient that increases the duration of a potion’s effects.
Overall, I found myself actually enjoying crafting, for once. Even though I made way more potions than I really needed, the more active systems made the whole process more satisfying.
Bottom Line Time
I haven't said much about the Tome of Knowledge yet, but that’s because I personally didn't find it very interesting. It's basically a cross between a fantasy novel and an encyclopedia of your progress, which is great if you're super into Warhammer, but you can tell the designers don't even expect people to read all the quest text%26#8211;the dialogue is in a rusty red color as opposed to the sharp black of the actual directions—so to include all this extra reading material is either a huge waste of time or a way to show the true fans how much they are loved. I guess we'll go with the latter, but it would be interesting to see what percentage of players reads every entry.
As far as audio/video goes, you'll want to run WAR with more than minimum specs, obviously, for the ultimate RvR experience. It's a pretty game, and less cartoony than World of Warcraft while still maintaining a clearly fantasy style. The main theme is hummable while you're waiting for the game to load%26#8211;especially if your server is full; the game is definitely popular.
My biggest complaint, aside from the crashes that made me want to just quit completely, is the lack of official forums. I don't want to be part of a community, I want to be part of the community. Yes, you can report bugs in-game, but it still just puzzles me that Mythic doesn't run their own forums rather than check-up on fan sites.
Love Your Job
Warhammer is about a war. No kidding! The Order faction consists of the Empire (humans), High Elves, and Dwarves, and on the flipside lies Destruction, composed of Greenskins (Goblins and Orcs), Dark Elves, and Chaos. The careers are all tied to race, so it's more important to decide what your job will be than what you want to look like.
Maybe you want to be a Witch Hunter. I mean, you get a gun and the ability to pile up accusations until an execution move becomes available, and who doesn't want to follow the mastery Path of "Confession?" Actually, I spent most of my time with a Marauder, whose arm shapeshifts as needed, although the Brutality sword-like appendage seemed to rock the hardest, with its Convulsive Slashing move that just tears up your target.
From level 11 you start gaining mastery points with which you specialize your career. For instance, I started up the Path of Brutality which not only improves all the moves specifically using the Brutality-shaped arm, but eventually unlocks new moves and passive career tactics you can slot to increase your effectiveness. High Elf Archmages who not only heal, but shoot lasers out of their eyes, Goblin Squig Herders who attack at range while commanding one ugly-looking pet monster—I wasn't able to try every career, but the fact that I wish I could have says a lot.
RvR Puts Hair On Your Chest
Of course there are plenty normal MMO quests (Kill wolves, find this dude, collect mushrooms...) but you can play any game for those. If you're coming to Warhammer, you're coming for the Realm vs. Realm and the Public Quests. The Realm vs. Realm (or you could say, "epic PvP" with plural Ps) comes in many varieties from open RvR servers to zones within a "core" server, to specific instanced missions called Scenarios. Scenarios are great because they last just fifteen minutes, you get set up with a group as you arrive, and you can zap straight to one from anywhere.
In the upper right hand corner of the screen, near your mini-map (with handy red blotches that designate quest objectives), there is a button to queue for a Scenario. Once you sign up, you can just forget about it and quest, craft, or whatever. When the Scenario resets and slots open up, a window pops up to let you know and you can warp from the spot you stand to battle it out against the opposing faction. Obviously noobs will be overwhelmed in these situations, but it's only fifteen minutes and you respawn easily in the zone to just keep hacking away. There are also quest objectives for killing members of the opposing faction, and you get experience just for finishing the encounter. Then, of course, there's the added bonus that even if you managed to kill just one guy, it still helps your realm in the overall battle.
Unfortunately, that vague knowledge is as close as we got to the huge scale that the war ends up taking. The highly anticipated sieges of "living cities" (that are more or less prosperous depending on how your faction is doing) are for those a bit closer to the 40 level cap.
Tags: Warhammer Online