Over the last month or so there has been a flurry of activity in the Warhammer Online community. From the first announcements of a first quarter 2009 launch to an all of a sudden late 3rd quarter 2008 launch, everything feels like it is being rushed a little bit. I have seen this game grow over the past few months as an Elder Beta tester and there is a lot that I would like to get off my chest about Warhammer. Like many things I have read, this too might turn out to be a little rantish, but just remember that I love Warhammer and I fully plan on buying the game, I have it preordered anyways…

Warhammer’s Release Date
When I first heard that WAR wouldn’t be out until 2009, I was sad but I just figured that they were taking the time to make the game perfect. All of a sudden, there is a mid September release date pulled out of no where and the first thing I thought to myself was, “Mythic is being told to put out of push off.”

The game has come along in a quite rapid manner in the last month. Bugs are being ironed out and the client is starting to feel much better. The CTDs that Beta 3.1 brought on became much more scarce, but the game still lacked the polish that I expect a game being released in a month to have.

The Dev’s are telling us great things about Beta 4.1 right now, well not much, but they are saying things like the CTDs are fixed, server latency is down, and the game is just more polished and getting ready to be in release candidate material. I am hopeful that they aren’t being optimistic, only time will tell.

Crafting
Right now, honestly, the state of Crafting in WAR is totally unacceptable. There is one crafting profession in the game right now, Apothecary, and it is a complete waste of time and money. In fact, it is a money sink because of the massive gold you have to pump into it to build it up.

There is one other official crafting system, talisman making, that isn’t even in the game yet. The ingredients have started dropping from Scavenged mobs, but they are completely worthless, you can’t even sell them. All they are good for is getting an unlock in you ToK for destroying items. Good job Mr. “The Wasteful”.

The gathering systems are kind of mediocre as well. There is Butchering, Scavenging, and Cultivation. The only one worth my while right now is Scavenging because you make so much money with it. There aren’t just enough “animal” type mobs that you kill to make butchering better than scavenging. Don’t even get me started on cultivation, this should really be a crafting system because that is how it behaves…

Right now, the crafting system is a slap in the face to most MMORPG fans and I really hope that Mythic gets it together before release comes out. I really hope that they have it together in 4.1 so that we can make sure it works. Again, only time will tell, but it has been unwise to pay so little attention to a part of the game that so many people enjoy.

The loss of the four cities
In case you didn’t know, there are only two capital cities in Warhammer. There were supposed to be six, one for each of the six races, but four of them got dropped because they take too long to develop apparently.

The two cities that they did make, Aldorf for the Empire and The Inevitable City for the Chaos, are spectacular. They are huge, well made cities. These cities also serve as the high end raiding content for the opposing faction, so I can understand that it takes a lot of time and attention to detail to make these cities work out perfectly.

I am sure that this decision made sense in Mythic’s eyes but in my eyes, the eyes of a player, this was another total slap in the face. This totally breaks the lore for four of Warhammer’s races. This decision to take out the four cities also breaks the game sort of, there really isn’t a reason to PVP in the Dwarf/Greenskin and Dark/High Elf areas as there is no end game content to work towards.

The loss of the four classes
The decision to take out the four unfinished classes was probably again, a good decision in the eyes of mythic, but in my eyes all it did was break the game. The Greenskin/Dwarf classes that got taken out were both DPS, so they really don’t make that much of a difference because they were mirrors of each other.

On the other hand, the two tank classes that were taken out, Black Guard and KotBS, both make a world of a difference in scenarios. The lack of a tank class makes its totally imbalanced at early levels for Empire and Dark Elves.

I really hope that Mythic will put these classes in soon, but I rather doubt it.

PvP
In Warhammer, PvP is called RvR. Realm versus Realm. This means the Realm of Order versus the Realm of Destruction.  This is an area where Warhammer shines. The PVP is great and at higher levels, you really don’t notice the absence of the four omitted classes, well the order might because the KotBS gives auras like the Chosen, and they are really helpful.

The Scenarios in WAR, equivalent to Battlegrounds in WoW, are great. There are two ways to win, get the 500 points you need or wait 15 minutes and whoever has the most points wins. This takes out the turtling tactic that people did in WoW and it just makes Scenarios much more enjoyable.

Open World RvR takes place in “Lakes”. These lakes have objectives and you have to work together as a team to get things done. These battles can get rather massive at times and they certainly feel really epic.

Public Quests
In WAR, Public Quests are community quests with community objectives. They are one of the most unique parts of the game and they add another dimension to the leveling experience, making it possible for characters to get excellent loot while working together.

Public Quests work in this manner, there is a set of objectives that get progressively harder and eventually lead up to a boss mob. When a boss mob is killed, a chest spawns and everyone automatically rolls for loot. The more you did in the PQ, the more bonus points you get added to your roll, it makes it so that people who work harder and contribute more have a greater chance of getting the bags.

There are a set amount of bags for each PQ and the highest rolls+bonus points get the bags. In the bags there are loot and money if you don’t need the loot. There are different types of bags, white, green, blue. purple, and gold. Each bag has all the things that the lower level bag has in it, but it also has another more powerful item. So, say you get a purple bag. It will have everything that the blue bag had in it, but it will also have another item that you may want.

Also, as you do a PQ, you get influence points which allow you to get Influence Rewards. These rewards are there as guaranteed rewards from doing a PQ and the rewards change as you change chapters. The items are quite good so it gives you a reason to do the PQs.

PvE
Warhammer has PvE just like every other MMORPG. There is high end raiding, and yes you do need to do RvR to access it, but the PvE is there none the less.

One thing I don’t like about Warhammer is that it killed the High End raiding guilds. There is really no reason to have a guild like Death and Taxes in WAR because the PvE is not that hard. The encounters are fun but they are made to be enjoyed by PUG groups, and because of this they are no where near the difficulty level of say C’thun in WoW.

Guilds
The Living Guild system in Warhammer is probably the best guild system I have ever seen. I wrote up a large post on it that you can read here.

Predictions
I think that WAR will be an incredible game. I have played it and I know that it has potential. It is in the hands of the Devs now to get their shit together and finish this project that they started.  They don’t need to take anymore shortcuts or breaks. As I said before, they need to put out or push off.

I think that WAR’s launch will go smoother than WoW’s did, it will have to, People expect a game that can compete with WoW right when the play it. You only have a few days to make a first impression and I am praying that Warhammer’s impression is better than Age of Conan’s.

Sorry for such a long post, but I had to do the game the justice that it deserved.

If you have any opiniions about WAR or completly disagree with somethign that I said, feel free to post a comment and contribute to the story.