Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning
If EA Mythic had their way we would forget all about WoW and get our fantasy MMO fix via Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.
The game is out this Autumn and a recent press event helped spill the beans on what to expect. The main features that differentiate Warhammer from WoW are Realm vs Realm combat, city sieges and the Tome of Knowledge. The latter is clever mix of Xbox Live-style achievements and stat gathering, with players gaining “achievements” for killing 1000 boars or exploring the map. The Tome compiles your story through the game, making you feel part of a wider world. All your quests, items and combat stats are logged, along with all the background story and bestiary a fan could want. It really is very smart.
But let’s face it, big battles are what Warhammer is about. And humour too, but mainly big battles. Players can choose from one of six races – Dwarves, High Elves and Humans versus Orcs, Goblins and Chaos - before heading into the field and clouting their rival faction with big swords. Realm versus Realm (RvR) is Warhammer’s selling point, with teams of players fighting massive battles to influence a moving front line. Ransacking your rival faction’s city and burning it to the ground is the ultimate aim. Solo fans needn’t worry though as you can still reach the level cap – currently 40 – on your own.
However what we’ve actually played so far seems a little underwhelming. Instead of city sackings and widescreen battles we got a small bout in an enclosed Battleground similar to the likes of Warsong Gulch in WoW. It all looked pretty, with some nice spell effects, but it didn’t feel hugely different to WoW. And even taking into account unfamiliarity - we were each given high level character to play with – the combat felt a bit clunky and imprecise. You can imagine this will be one of the main areas tightened up before launch.
The single player demo was polished, smooth and again very much like WoW. Think simple kill and fetch quests. We played in the High Elf starting area which was hugely reminiscent of the Blood Elf areas in WoW. Derivative yes, but the game does feel polished already, which bodes well for the Autumn release. Of course the chances are that the next WoW expansion will be launching around then too, which should make things very interesting. Warhammer looks like it is ready for the battle though.
