[Games] Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning
The latest online game I tried is this, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, or simply W.A.R. Yup, very neat short form. The game was released in 2008, well, quite a long time ago. But only recently that I feel like playing because.. you know, just to off some steams while waiting for the oncoming game of Warhammer, the Dark Millennium. I'm starting to be obsess with Warhammer am I? Urgh...
Anyway, I don't actually follow the storyline of Warhammer Fantasy, but it does show resemblance with Warhammer 40K. For what I understand, Warhammer Fantasy sets in the past while Warhammer 40K sets in the future. Both have the Imperial, Orks, and not to forget Chaos. In Fantasy they have Elves, but the 40K have Eldar, which I need not to point out that its pretty much the same. Now, why I mentioning this? Well apparently alot of people actually comparing this game with the Warcraft, which is ridiculus.. World of Warcraft may have been released earlier but the Warhammer have been around even longer. They even started from the board game before going to electronic.
Anyway, I have yet to see any private servers for this game, from what I know there is no server emulator available for this game. So I went straight to the retail game first. Probably because of the free unlimited play time offer. Yup, WAR went free, but not totally free. The trial offer allows the player to play a limited part of the game, but believe me, it is far more better than the last 10 days free play time offer. What make this game unique in a way, is that there is an option to stream data during game play. As we all know, MMORPG nowadays demands not just a truckload of bandwidth to stay connected but also some data storage. When I say some, it means at least 20GB of data storage.
For data stream during game play, you probably need like 9-10GB space to be installed while the rest is streamed back to you during gameplay, but if you choose not to, then the whole game will be patched up to 20GB. But it not just that, in the trial offer, the game will also not to be installed fully until you upgrade your subscription as, full subscriber. I have no idea who would want to stream the data during gameplay because.. who wants to play a laggy game anyway. Better blame the game server rather than you own crappy bandwidth, I'd say.
As you can see from the screenshot, there are 3 races for each faction, and there are 4 more class to choose from each race. There are the forces of Order and Destruction, races in the Order are Imperial, High Elves and Dwarves, for Destruction are Chaos, Dark Elves and Greenskins. For the classes, its a typical classes actually although the names varied from each races. There are melee DPS, ranged DPS, tank, and support.
Ok, this game did show some interesting features regardless that most of it pretty the same with other MMORPG game out there. First of all, there is this thing called Public Quest area. Its a place where you automatically get a quest, or what to do in that area, and you will share it with everyone. There is a ranking system for who contribute the most, to get like top three or ten, to loot the reward. And after finishing the quest, the area will reset back after a few minutes. Now, that, I haven't seen yet anywhere and it is pretty awesome. No more steal-kill and arguing about, 'Hey, this is my port' or stuff like that.
Then, there is RvR or Region versus Region, where you get to fight against the counterpart of you forces. You know, Order versus Destruction.. Its more like guild war, but, larger. Seriously, really large..
And then there is the Scenario play, where you can queue up as solo or a party, where you will be contested in a map to gain foothold in the area. Its like.. PvP battleground or something, the only different is that you actually gain experiences. If you went for a Scenario as a solo, you will be automatically grouped with other players in a party, and every player will be at the same, regulated levels. So there won't be higher or lower level. This is very interesting, because everyone could focus on their own roles, and only the most, specifically hand-picked equipments and neatly arranged hotbar filled with skills and potions will decide the battle outcome. Also, there is a collision detection system, where any character of tank role, will automatically block other character from going through him, thus creating a wall of meat-shield for ranged DPS and support character. So to speak..
There are alot of other features but.. I couldn't say or test it out myself. Of course with the trial offer, I could only go so far. Trial game allow players to level up to 10 only and could only traverse between a couple of regions. From where I've been, I'd say Norsca and Nordland only.
This game is good, no doubt about that. But I doubt this game could last long, given that they already shut down 64 of their servers and only running on 15 servers.. I will not pretend that I know what went wrong with this game, but I could agree with those out there that pointing out about the W.A.R drawbacks..
The thing is that, in my opinion, there can still be a comeback for W.A.R. All they need to do is fixed all the flawed side of their game, like the class balances, server performance and all those stuffs that the players have been complaining about before.. then release a new expansion, a new line of story. That, would at least show all those players out there that have ended their subscription, that this game deserve a second chance.
My 2 cents..
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