donderdag 25 augustus 2011
woensdag 6 juli 2011
And now for something completely different
It's been ages since I last wrote something on here, and a lot has happened in Taborea in the mean time.
But this post is about a different game.
Some time ago I created a trial account in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR) because I read a lot about it being PvP by design, and being fairly good at it. I chose to play a Greenskin Choppa, because I wanted a DPS character and supposedly Choppa's are some of the better ones out there.
First impressions, although they were a long time back: wow, those are nice graphics. By comparison RoM looks so badly like a game of the early 2000s.
Character handling is a bit different than RoM, there is of course a WASD setup but you can't use f.e. the attack skill to loot a dead mob. You need to right-click instead, which I read is similar to how WoW does it but I have never played WoW so I cant really tell. You also cannot move to a mob or NPC by using the attack skill, you have to actually move there yourself.
Bonus points for RoM on these small tweaks, I find them handy during gameplay.
On the few occasions that I logged on over several months, I had only been doing some PvE play. Fairly soon I ran into the first so-called Public Quest, which are a bit similar to world encounters in RoM. Only they appear to work better because your contribution to the success of the encounter is always considered when the public quest completes. There is no need for partying, just run into the area and start working towards the goal. Alone or together with other players that are already there or join in the fray afterwards.
To make it easier, active public quests with participating players are marked on the map.
And whether it is successful or not, you get to gain "influence" (that you can accumulate over the span of multiple occurrences of the same public quest). When you have collected a predetermined amount of influence you can go and collect a reward with a specific NPC for that public quest.
The only downside I have seen so far with the public quest is one session where there were insufficient players, over a timespan of several hours, that participated in that quest. Since one of the stages involved a lot of champions (the equivalent to elites) that were on or above level, it was impossible for those who were there to complete that stage and the quest. Maybe this doesnt come into play as much during evenings or weekends when there should be more players online.
Another fun aspect of WAR, both PvE and PvP, is the Tome of Knowledge. It is a quest log on steroids.
In it they keep track of a ton of things, which all may or may not give bonus XP, titles or different "rewards". There are records for places you have visited, mobs you have encountered, counters for mobs you have slain, counters (and titles!) for set amount of numbers you have died in PvE, same thing for PvP, amount of enemy player kills, and a gazillion more things. Except for some festival titles and the "30000 Cards" title in RoM I don't know of anything equivalent. And those titles are a meager reward in comparison to some ToK entries. This is a definite bonus for WAR.
Today I also decided to finally try out PvP. First I enqueued for some "scenario's", which are like battlefields in RoM. Only there is no direct X vs X as far as I can tell, there are actual goals in each type of scenario - at least those I had access too.
Summary: fun! Just like Siege War is fun if you don't crash every 20 seconds and the opponent is not cheating. The only downside is, in all scenario's I participated in, the Destruction side (which is what the Greenskin race is part of) lost. Maybe it is just a problem of being locked in Tier 1 and playing with only newbies like myself. Maybe it is a balancing problem on the low levels; I read that WAR has plenty of balancing problems. Maybe it is something completely different, I have no idea.
My personal impression was that the opponents were usually healed better than we were, so it might as just as well be a matter of class distribution. Or not.
Another part of WAR PvP happens in so-called RvR zones (Realm vs. Realm, i.e. Order against Destruction). I visited one RvR zone and played there for an hour or so. There too Order was overrunning us. Except very briefly after the objectives for an RvR zone reset, we were pushed back to our War Camp (think Guild Castle in SW) all the time. Here too, healing seemed to be lacking a bit, but less so than in scenarios. I should also mention that we were usually assigned an RvR XP bonus buff for being outnumbered. That latter fact surely won't have helped our cause. I should mention this wasn't really a problem in scenario's because there a preset and equal number of players on both sides is required before the scenario runs.
Due to the constant losing, the RvR experience became frustrating after a short time. I think I'll have to roll some other classes and also other sides and see how that fares.
Last thought: WAR uses a system of Action Points, which I think are kind of like rogue energy in RoM, for using skills.
I was fine with keeping enough during most PvE combat situations, but found myself constantly running out in PvP fights. The enemies I was fighting usually did not seem to have problems to keep hitting me, so I wonder how they were handling it. Better skill rotations to accomodate for AP regeneration? Popping potions by the dozen?
All in all I like WAR for it's PvP aspect, which should be a good thing since it is what is supposed to be the meat of the game. I will keep playing it on occasion, but I'm am not fond of subscription games so I will be locked in Tier 1.
If PvP is your thing, you should probably try it out, and if you don't have personal issues with subscriptions there would be more content for you to play around with.
But this post is about a different game.
Some time ago I created a trial account in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR) because I read a lot about it being PvP by design, and being fairly good at it. I chose to play a Greenskin Choppa, because I wanted a DPS character and supposedly Choppa's are some of the better ones out there.
First impressions, although they were a long time back: wow, those are nice graphics. By comparison RoM looks so badly like a game of the early 2000s.
Character handling is a bit different than RoM, there is of course a WASD setup but you can't use f.e. the attack skill to loot a dead mob. You need to right-click instead, which I read is similar to how WoW does it but I have never played WoW so I cant really tell. You also cannot move to a mob or NPC by using the attack skill, you have to actually move there yourself.
Bonus points for RoM on these small tweaks, I find them handy during gameplay.
On the few occasions that I logged on over several months, I had only been doing some PvE play. Fairly soon I ran into the first so-called Public Quest, which are a bit similar to world encounters in RoM. Only they appear to work better because your contribution to the success of the encounter is always considered when the public quest completes. There is no need for partying, just run into the area and start working towards the goal. Alone or together with other players that are already there or join in the fray afterwards.
To make it easier, active public quests with participating players are marked on the map.
And whether it is successful or not, you get to gain "influence" (that you can accumulate over the span of multiple occurrences of the same public quest). When you have collected a predetermined amount of influence you can go and collect a reward with a specific NPC for that public quest.
The only downside I have seen so far with the public quest is one session where there were insufficient players, over a timespan of several hours, that participated in that quest. Since one of the stages involved a lot of champions (the equivalent to elites) that were on or above level, it was impossible for those who were there to complete that stage and the quest. Maybe this doesnt come into play as much during evenings or weekends when there should be more players online.
Another fun aspect of WAR, both PvE and PvP, is the Tome of Knowledge. It is a quest log on steroids.
In it they keep track of a ton of things, which all may or may not give bonus XP, titles or different "rewards". There are records for places you have visited, mobs you have encountered, counters for mobs you have slain, counters (and titles!) for set amount of numbers you have died in PvE, same thing for PvP, amount of enemy player kills, and a gazillion more things. Except for some festival titles and the "30000 Cards" title in RoM I don't know of anything equivalent. And those titles are a meager reward in comparison to some ToK entries. This is a definite bonus for WAR.
Today I also decided to finally try out PvP. First I enqueued for some "scenario's", which are like battlefields in RoM. Only there is no direct X vs X as far as I can tell, there are actual goals in each type of scenario - at least those I had access too.
Summary: fun! Just like Siege War is fun if you don't crash every 20 seconds and the opponent is not cheating. The only downside is, in all scenario's I participated in, the Destruction side (which is what the Greenskin race is part of) lost. Maybe it is just a problem of being locked in Tier 1 and playing with only newbies like myself. Maybe it is a balancing problem on the low levels; I read that WAR has plenty of balancing problems. Maybe it is something completely different, I have no idea.
My personal impression was that the opponents were usually healed better than we were, so it might as just as well be a matter of class distribution. Or not.
Another part of WAR PvP happens in so-called RvR zones (Realm vs. Realm, i.e. Order against Destruction). I visited one RvR zone and played there for an hour or so. There too Order was overrunning us. Except very briefly after the objectives for an RvR zone reset, we were pushed back to our War Camp (think Guild Castle in SW) all the time. Here too, healing seemed to be lacking a bit, but less so than in scenarios. I should also mention that we were usually assigned an RvR XP bonus buff for being outnumbered. That latter fact surely won't have helped our cause. I should mention this wasn't really a problem in scenario's because there a preset and equal number of players on both sides is required before the scenario runs.
Due to the constant losing, the RvR experience became frustrating after a short time. I think I'll have to roll some other classes and also other sides and see how that fares.
Last thought: WAR uses a system of Action Points, which I think are kind of like rogue energy in RoM, for using skills.
I was fine with keeping enough during most PvE combat situations, but found myself constantly running out in PvP fights. The enemies I was fighting usually did not seem to have problems to keep hitting me, so I wonder how they were handling it. Better skill rotations to accomodate for AP regeneration? Popping potions by the dozen?
All in all I like WAR for it's PvP aspect, which should be a good thing since it is what is supposed to be the meat of the game. I will keep playing it on occasion, but I'm am not fond of subscription games so I will be locked in Tier 1.
If PvP is your thing, you should probably try it out, and if you don't have personal issues with subscriptions there would be more content for you to play around with.
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