It does indeed sound fun, and I was interested in WAR for some time. But right now, with the big RP polygon of Ryzom returning and finally being able to play TR for it's sheer fun pew-pew-pew laz0r action, I'm quite content with my MMOG's and don't really look for anything new.

I am still interested in how the RvR mechanics turned out to be. So far, I've only seen one game that did it right, and that, strangely enough, was a Korean free-to-play one.

So, please, as you keep playing, share your thoughts on it. Specifically, how soon you can join the fray and gain a few victories - do you need to grind for some level and equipment, or just go out swinging the moment you make your character? Who does your victory benefit - just you, your guild, or your whole side?

[big]Solo Public Quests: It's like having a rave on your own[/big]

Been playing it for about a week now and some things have become rather noticeable.

It seems that to few are around in the same location on the same time. While this prevents the frustration of being without mobs, it does make some public quest useless.

Public quests consist of several stages that must be completed. The first one is usually the untimed kill x mobs type. Later stages involve harder mobs and a time limit. This thing can be so great...if you can play them through to the end that is.
The first stages are perfectly playable on your own, the second one might be doable aswell on solo if you are above the recommended level, the final one is always a boss-battle...so you need some backup here and that is where some PQ's lose out.

Looking at the average server-population it seems that a lack of players isn't an issues -most have "medium"-, what might be a problem is the faction and race balance of the server population.
This is also something that reflects in RvR scenarios. On the server where I play Destruction, i got a game within 10 min of joining a queue, while on the server where I play Order I joined one for 30 min and still didn't get one.
Does this mean the game sucks? NO, not at all, the game works as it should, it's the players that need to be poked to balance themselves out.

While this might resolve most of the RvR scenarios and PQ issues, there is another issue plaguing (no nurgling intended) zones that have several PQ's
In WAR you can fill three types of progression bars. You got the xp-bar, the renown bar and the influence bar.
XP you get for killing, exploring, unlocking tome entries and completing quest objectives and with enough xp you level...I mean you rank up. Typical, old school and fairly straight forward
Renown is basically RvR xp, you earn it by completing Renown Objectives. This can be anything from playing RvR scenarios to completing quests that influence the overall RvR game. With enough Renown you achieve a higher Renown level and get access to stuff that depend on your Renown level. Bit like PvP gear and skills in other mmo's.

Influence is what you get extra during PQ's. It can be best described as faction points which unlock certain bonuses with certain factions. Unlike Renown and XP, Influence doesn't take you to a higher level when you have a certain amount. It finishes a chapter. Once a chapter is done you need to unlock a new one in another zone.
Although the faction loot will encourage people to play the PQ's, the fact that the amount you achieve is limited within a chapter people will not hang around for long once their chapter is completed. This is highly noticable in zones where you have several different PQ's.
People will play the one closest to the base spawn point until they complete their respective chapter and those further off will simply be ignored. This might improve on higher levels where the loot received from completing PQ's is far better than the one you get in the starting zones, but as it is now it seems that a lot of content is being ignored by endgame rushers.

[big]The larger MMORPG issue: people prefere megamixes to all night raves[/big]

This is a downside of the game, but it's a downside that can easily be fixed. MMORPG players need to learn the art of slowing down and enjoying the game. It seems that far to many play these games like they play shooters. Fast, purely focused on the strictly necessary and only doing it for the win and to be frank, I don't believe it will ever change.
People want to do 5 million crit damage, achieve level 8000 and solo every boss in a game within a day. Then then they bitch on every single message board in existence on how they feel ripped off and that they would have downloaded it if they'd known that it would be so short.
When RP went from geek to sleek it seems to have lost the "role play' point. Content does no longer reflect on lore, but on giving 15000 levels that can be completed with a minimum of dehydration or urine poisoning during a one play session. People want to go bitch further on the message boards before they finally land in ER or the morgue.
I wont even go into idiots who buy in game currency with real money or those who pay for leveling services.

Maybe RP'ers should re-invent  MMOPnP-RPGs through Play By Mail.

In the mean time I'll be trying to enjoy WAR as much as possible.

Last edited by Midragar (2008-10-05 22:34:54)

[big]Kinky Carpenter's Escape From New Emskrang[/big]

Last time I complained about the apparent lack of initiative on Destruction side when it comes to world RvR. Yesterday we kicked Order out of New Emskrang (RvR zone in Northland).
Again RvR showed it's charm here and we even managed to pull some tactics off. One of the players actually managed to get the warband (raid party in wow) to listen to his or her orders and as an effect we fought with some cohesion and sent Order crying after their mums.

Yet a good experience in the magical world of the mmo's is never without its little niggling issues.
Lets first state the obvious.

Tanks and melee dps fight upclose
Casters, ranged dps, etc fight from a distance.

That was the obvious

None of classes have a far reach when doing something en unless one of the sides rushes in (usually the ones that need to capture or recapture something) the game can quickly turn into a stalemate were both sides stay out of each others fighting range and do nothing much other than taking potshots at each other.
As effect once we had captured the city there was little else for us to do other than guard it. I'd like to point out that once a point has been conquered it can't be reclaimed for the following 15 minutes
Yesterday Order decided to amass their forces and basically do nothing, my guess is that they planned on waiting till all 3 points of New Emskrang became reclaimable and rush on all three at once. To be honest I couldn't be bothered to wait around 30 - 35 minutes to see some action.

Now I had a peek at some of my class it's advanced skills and one of them is getting tentacles and drawing an enemy closer to you. Is suspect  other classes have something similar or a mindcontrol thing, so the stalemate issue might only be a low-rank issue.
Overall I'm truly enjoying RvR and it must be said Mythic really knows how do draw traditional PvE-ists like me into the PvP-land.

I'm leading the guild Bruckmann Trading Co on Burlok. Order side.

A couple of nights ago I commanded a warband that defended one keep against the destructicon zerg and, once the heretics gave up, we went on to take 5 BO's and 2 keeps, securing all there was to capture in Tier 2 for the Order side.

It is an awesome game. RvR is where heroes are born and glory earned.

As for the Marauder tentacle ability, I hear it really is great. Makes the Marauder bit of a late-bloomer class though, getting their best ability at the last rank. But everyone gets something amazing at the top ranks. My WP gets a silence at 35 and AoE knockback at 40, which will both help me with my favourite combat feat, routing the enemy healers. Have turned many big battles with that already. I'm the healer-smacking healer.

As far as I know only trail after buy. Get 30 days
Maybe 10 day trials will be appearing in a month or so.

@Mir. I'll make sure to claim your weakling life in the name of the Raven God

Last edited by Midragar (2008-10-12 22:07:13)

Destruction RP Server players are amongst the dullest people around when it comes down to creating a guild name. You can quote me on that.

Examples: Lobotomy, Army Of Darkness, In With The Darkness, Waaagh! (at least this more or less WH orientated), etc.

The best guild names, "best" being a relative term here, are coming from the Dark Elves. They either work with "Houses" or names referring to various legends, mostly in one or other Scandinavian language.

Character driven RP is very thinly spread, at least for Destruction. Of course this does not come completely as a surprise as Greenskins and Chaos are not exactly communicative societies and WAR on it self doesn't really seem to offer many places where you can have quiet and nice talk.
First off, you have the zones that are almost directly tied to your game progression. Once you're engaged in Tier 3, there is little point in going back to Tier 1 and people still in Tier 1 can't easily hop over to Tier 3.
Zoning is where the traditional successful mmorpg's still score far better.
Secondly Capital cities are use for endgame and not as hubs in the currently established mmorpg's
Does the average non-rp'r care about this, not likely. They use the chat functionality to communicate, there is no need for virtual personal interaction and in my own current experience is doesn't influence the joy that I get out if playing WAR. It's just and issue that pops up for rp'ers when it comes to social interaction.

Last edited by Midragar (2008-10-16 12:03:12)

Goodness gracious, we ran out of mayonnaise back there, but no worries, I went to the shop and got some fresh from the ermmm Mayo-creator-thing.

I'm now up to rank 21, which is some pretty fast leveling for me personally. It took me 2 years to get to 54 in WoW. I've so far rearranged 836 faces of Order, killed a huge amount of mobs, bought a horse named Desire and wielded an axe vaguely resembling a vase.
I've seen myself die at least 200 times (if not more), became a chicken twice and had one as a sidekick. It took me three weeks to kill 20 Witch Hunters in RvR and auctioned two things for over 1 gold which were barely worth 5 silver.
I've also unlocked over 500 tome unlocks and went from wearing pants to a tuff of bear fur and back to pants never losing my village people-style leather breast-straps. I've seen wizards setting themselves on fire and I fought several deamons. Those to weak to follow the Host were sentenced to death and I have had to kill them frequently. I murdered once a defenseless player, 6 ranks lower than me because he was unlucky enough to happen to be flagged while running around. I did some crafting only to abandon it and go for scavenging instead looting charming stuff like "a tuff of hair".
I wore a hat and turned into a bear, but no-one was impressed so I did a public quest. I wasted hours running around and twice as much getting drunk on a friday night with my mates. I've killed trolls and met some on a messageboard. I've been shot at, stabbed and burned and resurrected time after time.

I play WAR and I like it.