Warhammer Online- Thumbs Up or No?

[Huntn]

Now that it's out, I was browsing the PC rack in Best Buy this weekend and there, Warhammer Online called out to me, but I resisted.

Some of you may laugh, but WoW is the standard I'm looking to beat. I want a MMORPG that is worthy of exploration, not overly dependent on PVP, a high quality PVE experience supporting solo and small party questing. A little voice said "be prepared for disappointment." So instead I decided to get some opinions. Pro or con appreciated!

 

[Cander]

Now that it's out, I was browsing the PC rack in Best Buy this weekend and there, Warhammer Online called out to me, but I resisted.

Some of you may laugh, but WoW is the standard I'm looking to beat. I want a MMORPG that is worthy of exploration, not overly dependent on PVP, a high quality PVE experience supporting solo and small party questing. A little voice said "be prepared for disappointment." So instead I decided to get some opinions. Pro or con appreciated!

I am going to say nay. I love the game, but based on your list of needs I dont think you will like it.

I want a MMORPG that is worthy of exploration

While exploring for for Tome Lore unlocks is a novel idea, the world feels a bit small, linear, and restrictive and not worth exploring for me.

not overly dependent on PVP

You really need to do scenarios (battlegrounds) beyond Tier 2 to level at a reasonable rate without mind numbing npc grinding and the end game is pretty much all about the PvP.

high quality PVE experience supporting solo and small party questing

Mostly the quests are pretty much all solo. Public Quests are pretty cool and you might like those. But beyond that, there is very little in the way of dungeons.

In short if you want a PvE experience, stick with WoW. WAR just may not be your cup of tea. WAR's focus is on the Realm vs Realm PvP action

 

[vampyr]

I think you might enjoy EverQuest 2.

I've played it in the past and it seems like what you are wanting to do.. explore and be able to go solo when you want.

Even WoW has certain quests that you MUST group in... which I think is silly because I've gained enough lvls that the group quest would be easy enough to beat on my own.

 

[Huntn]

Thank you both for the input!

Cander, you basically confirmed what I feared.

Vampyr, are most of the Everquest 2 quests, kill and collect? Lots of grinding? Static world? Thanks...

 

[iProd]

You can also go for Guild Wars, it fits a good amount of your needs, and it's fun to boot. Nice story.

 

[apfhex]

Even WoW has certain quests that you MUST group in... which I think is silly because I've gained enough lvls that the group quest would be easy enough to beat on my own.

I'm not aware of any group quests that you actually HAVE to be in a group to do, of course excluding anything done in a raid since you have to be in a raid group to enter a raid instance but then those quests are normally about killing bosses — even then, they don't require other players to actually be in the instance, just look at all the videos of people soloing old raid bosses. Generally, if you outlevel/outgear/outskill a group quest, you can do it solo, including most dungeons (obviously not max level dungeon, but level 60<).

I'm not going to suggest WoW since you seem to be looking for alternatives, though I'm still discovering things in the game that I've never seen before, tucked into far corners of zones. I'm not deeply into the lore but in general find it pretty interesting. It's something to keep your mind occupied through the boring grinding parts of leveling.

 

[vampyr]

well... there is a quest in Loch Modan... a Wanted: quest... I saw him once in a group, some Tauren with 2 bodyguards that walks around the wooded area of Loch Modan. Apparently he only appears if you are in a group.


As for EQ2... the enviroments are pretty dynamic... it rains, snows, has fog, etc... it's not a static environment.

EQ2 does have your typical 'go here, get this, return' type quests. The quests are easier to do because the game shows you where you have to go and what quest to do.

If you are starting out... go try out both... I'm pretty sure they both have free downloads and free trials.

 

[Cander]

I'd like to suggest Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. The game has really improved since its disasterous release. And they have a free trial finally. If you want a world worthy of exploration, Vanguard is definatly it. Plenty of solo and small party quests and no PvP to really speak of except on the one PvP server. But it is a PvE focused game. More complex than WoW, but certainly worth a shot.

 

[detz]

War Online is GREAT! I just reached level 20 this morning and so far this is the best game I've played. RvR is great...it's what WoW tried to do when raids? The quests are not repetitive, I actually enjoy questing where in WoW I quit the game because it was Kill 15 of these...oh, then go kill 30 of these. War does not have this, the story is solid too.

If you want something new, the whole RvR addition, public quests and scenarios makes this game an enjoyable long last title. Pick it up, if you're coming from WoW you will defiantly enjoy it.

 

[Huntn]

well... there is a quest in Loch Modan... a Wanted: quest... I saw him once in a group, some Tauren with 2 bodyguards that walks around the wooded area of Loch Modan. Apparently he only appears if you are in a group.


As for EQ2... the enviroments are pretty dynamic... it rains, snows, has fog, etc... it's not a static environment.

EQ2 does have your typical 'go here, get this, return' type quests. The quests are easier to do because the game shows you where you have to go and what quest to do.

If you are starting out... go try out both... I'm pretty sure they both have free downloads and free trials.

I appreciate the advice. When I talk about static vs dynamic, I'm referring to the world as in does anything change in the world? My guess is that EQ and EQ2 are static worlds in this regard just like WoW.

I'd like to suggest Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. The game has really improved since its disasterous release. And they have a free trial finally. If you want a world worthy of exploration, Vanguard is definatly it. Plenty of solo and small party quests and no PvP to really speak of except on the one PvP server. But it is a PvE focused game. More complex than WoW, but certainly worth a shot.

I played Vanguard in the beta and was not impressed at the time, but I'm open now. How is Vanguard more complex than WoW? Thanks!

iProd, I do have Guild Wars sitting on my desk, tried it a while back and did not care for 100% instanced questing space, not to say I've not been thinking about reinstalling it.

Bottom line, I don't have high hopes for finding a current MMO that will satisfy me. WoW was the best, but I burned out after 18 months. Somewhere around level 60, and after running 5 characters up to the mid 30s-50s I realized that going out and killing 20 X was no longer satisfying.

 

[Cander]

The quests are not repetitive, I actually enjoy questing where in WoW I quit the game because it was Kill 15 of these...oh, then go kill 30 of these. War does not have this, the story is solid too.

No that is not true. WAR quests are EXACTLY like that. Quests are no different in WAR than in WoW or any other game. Kill x of y, pick up x of y, deliver y.

RvR is great...it's what WoW tried to do when raids?

No it is not what WoW was trying to with raids. WoW raids are PvE. RvR is open PvP. Not even close to the same thing.

 

[t19880821]

Now that it's out, I was browsing the PC rack in Best Buy this weekend and there, Warhammer Online called out to me, but I resisted.

Some of you may laugh, but WoW is the standard I'm looking to beat. I want a MMORPG that is worthy of exploration, not overly dependent on PVP, a high quality PVE experience supporting solo and small party questing. A little voice said "be prepared for disappointment." So instead I decided to get some opinions. Pro or con appreciated!

One problem. You said WoW is the standard you're tring to beat. To some people, WoW isn't even considered a standard because they hate it with a passion.

But.. if you like PVE, WAR's PQs are really fun. You said "not overly dependent on PVP." I don't wanna say it revolves around it, but PVP does play a huge part in WAR.

I wish I could give you a guest pass or somethin so you could try it out. I'm not a big fan of WoW, so I don't think I'm much of a credible source. I have played it for a couple days and I didn't like it (then again, I don't like a lot of MMOs). But WAR really sucked me in if that means anything.

 

[Huntn]

One problem. You said WoW is the standard you're tring to beat. To some people, WoW isn't even considered a standard because they hate it with a passion.

But.. if you like PVE, WAR's PQs are really fun. You said "not overly dependent on PVP." I don't wanna say it revolves around it, but PVP does play a huge part in WAR.

I wish I could give you a guest pass or somethin so you could try it out. I'm not a big fan of WoW, so I don't think I'm much of a credible source. I have played it for a couple days and I didn't like it (then again, I don't like a lot of MMOs). But WAR really sucked me in if that means anything.

WoW is the standard for me to beat because it is the first MMORPG/RPG that sucked me in. The environment, the game play all did it for me for over a year. What made WAR standout for you and more attractive than WoW? What kind of lag you seeing in PVP?

I realize that when I played Wow I was playing up around 20 hours a week- way too much. I don't think I ever want to get into that kind of a playing schedule every again so I'm hoping something comes along that is casual player friendly. I realize it can be argued that WoW is also casual player friendly. But if you were in a guild online, and not keeping up with the others you'd be left behind. But realistically I guess that could happen in any MMO.

 

[Bones13]

Long time EQ and WoW gamer. My son is playing warhammer, and seems to like it, but he seems to still be playing a bunch of PvP on WoW. It seems to depend on where his friends are playing today. He vastly prefers the group playing, PvP or PvE.

I am pretty blase on PvP, and usually prefer the adventuring, and exploring parts of the games. Endless grinding does get boring, but something pretty easy to do in solo PvE play, which I get an hour or 2 of at night. I left both EQ and WoW for the main reason that both endgames pretty much revolved around long raid based dungeon work. I neither have the time, nor the interest for 8 hour encounters where a couple of nice items drop for the 20 or so folks involved in the raid. Of course this must be repeated over and over for everyone to get their class based item. Some improvements with some "token" drops in the later expansion which would apply to any class, depending on who the token is turned into.

I am currently playing Lord Of The Rings Online. While I am slow, I have gotten one character to 50, with some areas still to explore over the year or so that the game has been out. There is a new expansion sometime this fall, and I expect to continue to have new areas to see, and experience. There is some minimal PvP, with folks playing monsters against the other folks characters in a controlled area. This really is only do-able at 50, as all the monster characters start at 50, and only learn new skills over time, not levels.

I play LOTRO on a PC, Bootcamp on my MacBookPro, and using Crossover on my iMac, directly from the mac desktop. Being a long term Tolkein fan, this game was a must for me. While it is slower than WoW, its got much nicer graphics, and a generally older crowd playing it than WoW.

 

[PyroTurtle]

With Wrath's release WoW won't be as static anymore. When you save someone from a village, you won't see them there anymore. It's pretty cool.

If you want a fun game to play that's got some great people (and "isn't WoW"), I will echo the recommendation of LOTRO. Talk about a game that has great exploration! As you wonder around you get deeds to go and wander around some more, to find landmarks and explore as much as you can. It's quite fun, and I like LOTRO quite a bit. I'm a little sad that LOTRO's expansion is 5 days after Wrath, talk about bad timing.

As for WarHammer, I'd recommend steering clear of it. There's not much to do once you hit max level aside from RvR (aka PvP), and it's still got some odd bugs to work out. Runs just fine on my MBP, but not a game I can recommend, esp with what you outlined.

 

[t19880821]

Long time EQ and WoW gamer. My son is playing warhammer, and seems to like it, but he seems to still be playing a bunch of PvP on WoW. It seems to depend on where his friends are playing today. He vastly prefers the group playing, PvP or PvE.

I am pretty blase on PvP, and usually prefer the adventuring, and exploring parts of the games. Endless grinding does get boring, but something pretty easy to do in solo PvE play, which I get an hour or 2 of at night. I left both EQ and WoW for the main reason that both endgames pretty much revolved around long raid based dungeon work. I neither have the time, nor the interest for 8 hour encounters where a couple of nice items drop for the 20 or so folks involved in the raid. Of course this must be repeated over and over for everyone to get their class based item. Some improvements with some "token" drops in the later expansion which would apply to any class, depending on who the token is turned into.

I am currently playing Lord Of The Rings Online. While I am slow, I have gotten one character to 50, with some areas still to explore over the year or so that the game has been out. There is a new expansion sometime this fall, and I expect to continue to have new areas to see, and experience. There is some minimal PvP, with folks playing monsters against the other folks characters in a controlled area. This really is only do-able at 50, as all the monster characters start at 50, and only learn new skills over time, not levels.

I play LOTRO on a PC, Bootcamp on my MacBookPro, and using Crossover on my iMac, directly from the mac desktop. Being a long term Tolkein fan, this game was a must for me. While it is slower than WoW, its got much nicer graphics, and a generally older crowd playing it than WoW.

That's great to hear. And no disrespect at all, but he asked about WAR, not LOTRO. I tried LOTRO out myself and didn't really get much into it to know much about it. But if PVE is great in that game compared to WoW, then LOTRO might be a good alternative for him.

Anyway, to the OP, since you said you were looking for a high quality PVE experience, I don't think WAR is for you. I enjoy the PVE in WAR, mainly because it's not complicated and I'm really looking more towards PVP than anything, but if I put myself in your shows I wouldn't enjoy the PVE part.

 

[vampyr]

I appreciate the advice. When I talk about static vs dynamic, I'm referring to the world as in does anything change in the world? My guess is that EQ and EQ2 are static worlds in this regard just like WoW.

(

OK.. well... here's a scenario quest I remember doing in EQ2.

In EQ2, it actually had a moon that would move through the sky... on certain days, at certain times the moon would change to red... and the land was dark, like an eclipse.

Apparently the quest I had was part riddle, when the sky turns red and darkens the land.. or something like that, was the only time that a certain boss or location would appear.

I also noticed at some point, just before I quit playing.. that there were 'borders' that would move to let you know where the battlefront was... I never understood it really as I was never a high enough level.... but I remember that certain lands that I could access were now unreachable (It had some gigantic field barrier of some sort).

I guess to me, a dynamic environment is one that you interact with... you won't see trees grow or plants wither and die.... but some of your quests are dependent on certain environmental conditions to change in order for you to accomplish the quest.

Of course I've only been playing WoW for a month so far, so there is ALOT of land I've yet to see. I'm thinking about putting an explorers guild together to offer rewards for exploring distant lands. (Some people have played for years and have yet to see all the lands)

 

[Huntn]

I play LOTRO on a PC, Bootcamp on my MacBookPro, and using Crossover on my iMac, directly from the mac desktop. Being a long term Tolkein fan, this game was a must for me. While it is slower than WoW, its got much nicer graphics, and a generally older crowd playing it than WoW.

Thanks for the input! I played LOTRO in beta and it reminded a lot of WoW. I opted not to continue it in retail. I forget which class but playing songs to fight monsters was amusing. Just keep in mind you're talking to someone who has gotten very difficult to please when it comes to MMOs. Any idea how many subscribers LOTRO has?

That's great to hear. And no disrespect at all, but he asked about WAR, not LOTRO. I tried LOTRO out myself and didn't really get much into it to know much about it. But if PVE is great in that game compared to WoW, then LOTRO might be a good alternative for him.

I appreciate all of the advice, thanks!

Of course I've only been playing WoW for a month so far, so there is ALOT of land I've yet to see. I'm thinking about putting an explorers guild together to offer rewards for exploring distant lands. (Some people have played for years and have yet to see all the lands)

Oh yeah, what class did you choose? I loved Night Elves and Teldrassil. Thanks for the EQ2 example of dynamic. I'm mulling over the possibility of EQ/EQ2.

 

[Plutonius]

Huntn,

If you have not played WoW in awhile, I would give WoW - tBC a try. I was like you in that I started playing when WoW came out, got some characters up to level 60, and then got bored and quit. I came back 10 months after tBC came out and have been playing since then.

In PvE (you seemed to be more interested in PvE), Blizzard made the game more casual in that you no longer have to raid to get good end game epic gear. The five person instances can be set for either normal or heroic difficulty (you need a level 70 for heroics) and the bosses in the heroics drop badges that can be exchanged for epic gear. No longer are you forced to be in a raiding guild and you are able to play as often or as little as you want.

 

[detz]

Don't give up on PvP though, I hated PvP in most games but in War Online I like it. On PvE servers you can still do PvP but only if you set yourself to it or you go in an RvR area which is great. Starting in teir 1 the RvR is about 1/4 of the map area and grows as you level up so you start getting more action. It's great to do PvP because it's real people, not some stupid AI that the programmers put in there. I guess it all depends...you can listen to everyone's opinions or you can go try it for youself, in the end don't let anyone on here make up your mind for you. War Hammer Online (In my opinion) is a great game.

 

[Huntn]

Huntn,

If you have not played WoW in awhile, I would give WoW - tBC a try. I was like you in that I started playing when WoW came out, got some characters up to level 60, and then got bored and quit. I came back 10 months after tBC came out and have been playing since then.

In PvE (you seemed to be more interested in PvE), Blizzard made the game more casual in that you no longer have to raid to get good end game epic gear. The five person instances can be set for either normal or heroic difficulty (you need a level 70 for heroics) and the bosses in the heroics drop badges that can be exchanged for epic gear. No longer are you forced to be in a raiding guild and you are able to play as often or as little as you want.

Wow, that does sound interesting. How many 5 person instances and I wonder what overall percentage of small party instances are there for TBC?

 

[Fezwick]

Wow, that does sound interesting. How many 5 person instances and I wonder what overall percentage of instances are there for TBC?

I believe there are 16 new 5 man instances in TBC. All of those can be run on heroic mode for better loot. They are much harder than their normal counterparts. There are also a few 10 man instances which aren't very hard. I ran Karazhan in blues without a problem.

 

[n8236]

I've been on WOW since day one and while I can't say it's a boring game, it does have an end. Solo'ing can only get so fun. Then you join a guild, fine, you do some dungeons here and there, great. If you're still up for a challenge, join a high-end guild that raids 5/7 nights, wonderful. You now have end-game gear.

The in itself is played out, a lot of players are just socially or emotionally attached given the vast amount of time invested.

Warhammer is similar, but if you ever played it, it's supposedly the anti-wow. It has a similar feeling so you can get started w/o feeling lost and it provides a bit more casual play w/o many of the annoyances of WOW. The game was just released, so it's still hard to say where it may be going. So far, people are really enjoying it because it's a bit of a refresher.

I'm currently lvl 20 and it's not too bad.

 

[XianPalin]

Warhammer is fun. If you do the normal "get quests, kill monsters, turn in quests" you will get bored, but if you queue up for scenarios nonstop and do minor questing during the few minutes between scenarios, you'll be having a great time.

The RvR scenarios are fun as hell, the pvp is a lot of fun, and I've never really played much PvP (always did PvE servers, etc). I always liked DAOC where the pvp was optional on most servers. It's like that here, but as the game progresses you get pushed more and more into RvR, but it's much nicer and accessible to people that aren't big fans of PvP ganking (my impression of PvP servers in WoW, AoC, etc).

 

[angelneo]

Huntn,

If you have not played WoW in awhile, I would give WoW - tBC a try. I was like you in that I started playing when WoW came out, got some characters up to level 60, and then got bored and quit. I came back 10 months after tBC came out and have been playing since then.

In PvE (you seemed to be more interested in PvE), Blizzard made the game more casual in that you no longer have to raid to get good end game epic gear. The five person instances can be set for either normal or heroic difficulty (you need a level 70 for heroics) and the bosses in the heroics drop badges that can be exchanged for epic gear. No longer are you forced to be in a raiding guild and you are able to play as often or as little as you want.

Indeed, WoW pre-BC is a lot more hardcore than the current TBC. I quit (it's frustrating to play it causally) for a year before coming back into TBC and was surprised that I could do a lot more with the limited playing time.