I Quit...Warhammer Online
Posted by 
iTZKooPA on Wednesday, April 1, 2009 - 23 Comments Tags: april fools, dual-gaming, lists, syp, top 5, war, war vs wow, warhammer online
iTZKooPA on Wednesday, April 1, 2009 - 23 Comments Tags: april fools, dual-gaming, lists, syp, top 5, war, war vs wow, warhammer online 
You may be expecting me to do some crazy April Fools' Day stuff, but I am going to let the other bloggers handle that. Okay fine, here is the first bit of April Fools' Day content from Blizzard, Pimp My Mount! Now that we got that out of the way, let us get to the topic at hand. In yesterday's Balancing Act I passed along the sad news that a trio of well respected bloggers were going to be moving on. One of these three was Syp, whom I had read since before Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning went live back in September. He won't be quitting his Engineer toon or WAR during his move to multi-MMO commentary, but I will be.
It isn't that I don't like WAR, its community or its direction. In fact, I very much enjoyed its similarities and differences when it was released, and that continues today. Yet when my subscription expires in a few days it will be the end of my foray into Games Workshop's fantasy universe. The main reason I am abandoning my Shaman (healer) is the topic we discussed yesterday, time management. I simply cannot do everything I need to in life and play two MMORPGs in the style I want to. If I didn't feel like playing any other video games, then I could fit Mythic's title alongside WoW, but that will never happen.
Despite the title's shortcomings (PvE) and hiccups (Realm balance), Mythic Entertainment did a bunch of great things. Things that even the WoW community would come to love and admire. Here are the top 5 things that I loved about WAR and Mythic's support of their MMORPG, in order of awesomesauce (less to more).
- Targeting - WAR allowed all players to select offensive & defensive targets by default. The capability was expertly implemented, allowing players to seamlessly DPS and heal without having to click all over. The experience was so amazing that I became a bit frustrated during my healing duties in WoW until I got used to Blizzard's mechanics again. On the flip slide, selecting via click in WAR is terrible, and works great in WoW.
- State of the Game - Mark Jacobs, basically THE man at Mythic Entertainment, would post walls of text every so often. In these addresses (which seem to come every quarter or so) the GM/VP/CEO would lay out the company's plans for the forseeable future and address the community's largest concerns. It was refreshing to see a busy and important person interacting directly with the players.
- War Herald - Following the dissemination of information from Jacobs is the far more commonly updated War Herald. The Herald was created in lieu of hosting official forums (which they now do) as a way to centralize important announcements and information. Rather than having hundreds of bloggers and journalists scouting forums for important developer posts, the War Herald summed it all up in one place for everyone to digest.
- Clarity - I like well defined things. That is the main reason I enjoy math, 2+2 always equals seventeen. The previous two bullet points were constantly full of dates, goals and clear descriptions on what was going on in the title. Problems with realm balance? They are aware, here is what they are trying to do and this is when we can expect it. Sure, they didn't always hit their release goals, and we understand why developers can be vague on dates, but they clarified everything as far as they could. This player loved them for it.
- Tome of Knowledge - This is the defining characteristic of WAR in my opinion. Mythic didn't see any point in hiding all of the data a character has connected to them so they just put it all out there. Wonder if you completed a quest way back when? Check the ToK. Did you want to re-read that awesome story from an earlier chapter? Fire up the ToK. How many more monsters do I need for the next Unlock (their version of Achievements)? Dust off the ToK. WoW doesn't allow us to look at our toon's past in any tangible way, yet all that information is recorded. Why not give it to us? It'd certainly make those Loremaster achievements easier if we knew what we had and hadn't accomplished.
Obviously, if I enjoyed WAR more than WoW then I would have stuck with it. That simply isn't the case. Blizzard's MMORPG has far more to offer me, especially since I love PvE. The reason for the list is because iterating and polishing is really what Blizzard does best. Many of their titles aren't drastically different than those before it, they just perfect every. Single. DETAIL. If I had to chose any one topic to see Blizzard apply to the way they handle WoW, it would be the Clarity bulletpoint. Have you experienced anything in other titles - or WoW's past - that would apply to our favorite MMORPG?
There goes all the hard work on my Dual-Gaming setup. Oh, and on an entirely unrelated note, if you see someone fall off their bike, go help them up and make sure they are okay. Otherwise you may get called out on the Internet for being an a-hole.
Reader Comments (23)
The way you are qutting a game like WAR byt NOT saying how bad it was and what the reason to quit it was.
I've also played WAR and i thought it was great, but WoW just have something... more.
Before I played in WoW my first time, I didn't like online games. I wanted to play next-gen games on my weak computer (honestly I loved screenshots of Assassin's Creed what I had instead of game), but my friend showed me WoW and I was totally absorbed with it! Untill the last month I played on private servers, but now I know how it's COOL to play on official server! Just look on the title: World of Warcraft = WOW it explaines everything. When I told my friend (future Prot pally) about WoW his reaction was "Wow I really want to play WoW!" I realy love WoW and I hope Blizz will make it even better.
I don't have much to add to this. The only MMORPG game played besides World of Warcraft was Runescape. I can't say anything that that game has that WoW does not have a uber better version of.
Ivan this is just the beginig ... you will want to know all so y'll play alothope you dont get to "deep"
(Forgive my bad english)
I love WoW so much for the PvE but I think it lacks with the PvP realms, from lvls 1 to 80 it's all about lvling up without PvP quests, and, if you see a lvl 80 or 70, he just squeeze you meanwhile lvls near your range just run or (if you kill them) logg with his alt and camp you. Also the low lvl BG are full of twinks for both sides, and is hard to find party because everybody is PvP spec.. So you don't seem to do nothing more but lvl to 80.
I know i'm gonna get the typical "go server PvE", but I like PvPing and I haven't had such fun until I hit 80, but that's the point, there is no fun in PvP servers until you hit 80.
But I seen in other posts about WAR that all the way up until their lvl cap, they do PvP and get exp., also they try to find balance in their BG, and all the zones that you are in, are getting contested by one faction or another, and your chars get fisical space (you cannot run through them like if they were ghosts).
I love WoW PvE, lore, character designs and scenarios, but I think it lacks on PvP.
I currently dropped my WoW subscription because I'm playing Warhammer instead.
I don't enjoy PvE at all. WoW comes off as basically a PvE game 90% of the time. If you love leveling and love raiding and love seeing the world and all that's in it, WoW is fantastic.
If you like PvP more though, WoW leaves a lot to be desired. PvP has changed so very much in WoW over the course of its existence.
If WoW offered the option to PvP from anywhere in the world and offered experience for PvP and random loot drops while PvP'ing, I would be 90% more likely to play WoW than Warhammer. The only thing I know for sure that they are adding is the ability to queue up from anywhere in the world (Warhammer already has this).
I really hope WoW improves its PvP. Anytime I've ever tried raiding, even with friends, it always ended up in a failing escapade, or took 3 hours to do something that should have taken 1. The PvP is where it is for me.
Now if they fix how bursty PvP is too, I'd definitely be back to WoW.
In short, WoW needs:
*Leveling via PvP (entirely if you want)
*Queuing from anywhere in the world for PvP
*Do something about PvP burst right now.
That is all. :)
Great post! i also agree as i've tried out and played numerous different MMORPG's just to try and see if there were other MMORPG's out there that i liked better. And fact is every game had it's ups and downs-even wow. WAR had some great aspects of the game that i think you pointed out fully. But all in all wow is still winning out for me as well (though i decided to stick to only wow a few months ago now.)
Great follow up post to yesterdays balancing post. Sometimes the easiest way to prioritize is just limit the number of games you play to the one you really enjoy.
Greetings people on Projectlore.com!
I haz a question.
Is the "Pimp My Mount" Stuff just a silly joke from Blizzard? Will they make the thing would be epic.. :D
Thank you if awnsering :)
@ Johnes
it's an april fools joke
*Queuing from anywhere in the world for PvP
will happen in 3.1
*Do something about PvP burst right now.
I guess it will be better in 3.1 but not sure about that
Leveling via PvP (entirely if you want)
They want to do too
i thought they already implemented the lvling while PvPing back in 3.0 but i may be wrong. I thought you now get xp from killing players and NPC's in battlegrounds. But anyways they really need to implement it soon if it's not already this'll forse these people who have level 19, 29, 39, 49, 59, 60 (for AV), 69 twinks to move on in the game.
And yes they really need to FIX PvP this bull crap of people forming losing groups for the free mark and free honor for free gear is crap. they need to make it to where you get no marks and no honor except kill honor unless you win and this should also be based upon actuall partisipation if you have no damage done or no healing done during the battle you get nothing and NPC damage doesn't count unless it's for objectives (AV) and self healing doesn't count either. they also need to make it to where it only take 1 person to report AFKers and it's an instant debuff you have 1 minute to partisapate before your kicked from the battle self healing and pet damage doesn't count to remove the debuff or count as damage to gain honor based on partisapation once kicked you get the debuff (deserter) and can't rejoin for 15 minutes.
by implementing these changes alone will help out alot as far as Battlegrounds go. As far as arenas since I don't have much experience in arena's I can't comment much, but can say they really do need to fix the ranking system and pairing of players and teams against 1 another. even if the team has the same rating as your own team it should be based on the players personal rating based on previous team partisipation and this rating should never be reset from team to team or from season to season.
I do agree with what they are doing with the points now starting from season 5 to season 6 (RESET) they shoulda did this with previous seasons.
Gear though needs a huge revamp the current gear isn't much of an upgrade from lvl 70 season 4 gear and they need to reset the honor system season to season too but they need to up the total honoryou can accumulate from 75,000 to 200,000 so you don't have to spend it everyday or week pending on how much you PvP. I do agree with the different tiers on how you get the gear based on which type of ways you PvP whether it be in game PvP ie:( halaa, wntergrasp, Grizzly hills, etc.....) or battlegrounds, or arena or the combination of all 3. but the gear needs to be level restrictive and it needs to be geared to the level and not a minor upgrade from the previous season take going from the brutal S4 gear to the savage S5 hateful S5 and deadly S5 arena gear as an example it's not abig improvement based on the 10 level difference to wear it. they also need to make it to where you can't purchase it unless you are level 80 this'll stop all these lower level people from farming honor to get gear as twinks.
But enough ranting basically they need to fix PvP
I played WAR for a little over a month with Furian (if you remember him) and honestly I DID like it... just not as much as wow. The PVE aspect was what really turned me away from it. It just felt so shallow.
One thing i liked very much about WAR before i quitted back to WoW, was the guild system, they had a way to customize your guild that made WoW guilds look they came from the stone age
Yes "pimp my mount " is of course a Aprils fool joke,
like last year ? i havent sawn a bard yet... ? do you ? even though i must agree both ideas would be cool :-p
I played WAR with my friend...i had a lvl 18 witch elf
I think Warhammer just copies WoW in all aspects. Hell, even the races are the same.
didn't warhammer come out (with books and figurines) before warcraft? I could be wrong lol.
Yes they did.
ALEX YOU ARE A MORRON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
just kneedeed t be said
"I don’t have much to add to this. The only MMORPG game played besides World of Warcraft was Runescape. I can’t say anything that that game has that WoW does not have a uber better version of."
You must be joking. How about a 10x better choice in skills??
But you honestly cant compare the 2... ones a cd run game, the other is a java based game... its night and day.
Tried WAR enjoyed ot but for me WoW offers more. I did enjoy the RvR BG's a little laggy but fun none the less. The PvP zones while have the possibility to be great fun, having to fight people much higher than you is a little off putting.
Same goes for WoW I played for a year on a PvP realm in a vastly out numbered Horde population. PvP just gave asshats a way to cause grief to lower level people trying to level so I went back to PvE and have enjoyed questing and when I want to head into BG's or actively CHOOSE to be PvP in the new outdoor PvP areas of Grizzly Hills.
I can understand peoples desire to test their skills in battle against other people and not mobs driven by AI (I played Battlefiled 1942/Vietnam for many years) but when you log in as a lvl 27 and some lvl 70asshat pyroblasts you because "he can" to me thats not right.
...I think alex did a fat hollywood line before writing that. I had heart spasms just trying to read his rambles.
@itzkoopa, great post.
I agree that WoW has a lack of diversity (an old, old wooden ship) and flexibility in the pvp setup. But then again, people tend to forget that, as much as blizz has tried to keep pvp fans happy, WoW is a pve game. It is based on lore and class balancing. If it were a pvp game, then the characters would be far more homogenous than they are now [as many classes are clearly op'd for pvp...you know who you are (/shakes fist)].
In any case, if people are playing this game purely for pvp, they will be sorely disappointed. Yes, gameplay in WoW is the tits (best), but with only a handful of realms/battlegrouds out there, and only a handful of classes normally rolled for pvp, you have two hands full of some very redundant gameplay.
If you want to solely pvp, play another game. I enjoy pvp, but I play WoW for the best pve content available in a mmorpg, and that it has.