Challenging the king

Note: What follows is a brief assessment of Warhammer Online based on two months of extensive play logged in our gaming journal, Opposable Thumbs. For the full story, read through the play logs themselves, which are linked throughout this article and again at the end.

With over 10 million subscribers, World of WarCraft is the undisputed king of the MMORPG market. When it comes to massively-multiplayer online role-playing games, few can pose any real challenge to Activision-Blizzard's WoW. But EA, long-time rival of Activision, is trying to do just that with its recently-released MMO Warhammer Online. After two months in the field, it's time to see if EA has pulled off this coup.

In this battle, we wage WAAAGH!

From the outset, it's clear that EA Mythic has poured a lot of time and money into the Warhammer Online project. The game had an extensive beta-testing period and an excellent launch, arriving as a product filled with polish and promise. The early weeks of the game were free from any unplanned down-time, and the developers have been managing populations pretty well so far. The few areas of the game that are rough around the edges can largely be attributed to the typical roster of post-launch problems common in every MMO.

The centerpiece of the title, combat, is remarkably fresh and fun. Though the game banks on traditional Western MMO designs—for example, you have a hotbar with spell icons that you click to activate mana-draining spells, each limited by cool-down timers. Nevertheless, combat proves to be interesting, thanks to the inclusion of unique, class-specific play mechanics that give the game a leg up on the competition. One example is the Ironbreaker tanking class's "Grudges," which add up when taking damage and mitigate increasing damage in proportion to the number of Grudges. These simple mechanics go a long way toward individualizing the play styles of each class while making the otherwise-standard click-and-cast combat much more fun.

Player character individualization is also heavily supported by a strong array of customization systems. Mechanically, the game uses a ladder-based talent system that allows players to spill points earned from leveling up into specialized abilities that distinguish the player from others of the same class. The more linear approach makes it much easier to customize one's character without straying off the cookie-cutter path and handicapping oneself. Aesthetically, a trophy system allows players to attach decorative trinkets to themselves in various places so that they can be distinguishable on the battlefield. While the variety of armor sets in the game is limited by the developers' decision to make each class visually-identifiable, the addition of trophies, as well as colored dyes, makes it easy enough to stand out from the crowd.



My shaman has come a long way in the last month.

This personalization also extends to the game's interface, which is surprisingly user-friendly. In addition to the various Lua-powered mods made popular by World of WarCraft, Warhammer Online also includes an in-game UI editor reminiscent of Guild Wars. This editor allows players to easily drag, drop, and re-size the game's UI elements without any programming knowledge or extra-game tinkering.

All of these well-polished fundamentals lay the groundwork for the game's unrivaled player-versus-player combat, which is, in a word, exceptional. Mythic has successfully built on the formula it established with Dark Age of Camelot by offering its trademark realm-versus-realm engine in a more mature, polished, and attractive package.

The game includes the now-standard array of instance-based, scenario combat options with varied objectives, including variants of "Capture The Flag" and "King of the Hill." Players can queue up from wherever they are in the world, jump into a stand-alone encounter with automatically-assigned teams and an objective, and then return to where they were in the world without missing a beat. The drop-in, drop-out nature of the scenario system puts Warhammer a league above the competition.

Player vs. player vs. environment

At every stage of the game's four level-restricted tiers of content, and specifically in the end-game, players can also engage in world player vs. player combat (PVP). This "Siege" system requires members of the two opposing factions to defend zone keeps with both willpower and mechanical weaponry, such as battering rams and catapults, in order to remain in power. In the end-game, this becomes a battle for full cities—lose a city, and your entire faction cannot access much of the end-game bonuses. This truly creates a meaningful drive for players to fight in the name of their faction. As was the case in DAOC, the PVP combat of Warhammer Online is undeniably fun and gives the game a lasting appeal.

And while PVP is the clear focus, Mythic has made a few key innovations in the PVE space that are truly exciting. While there are thousands of relatively well-designed (though boring at times) player versus environment quests, as well as a collection of instanced dungeons and lairs, the most notable addition is the Public Questing system.

This public raiding system automates the majority of the bureaucracy involved in multi-man raids, like tracking contribution and fairly distributing loot. With these taken care of, players are free to enjoy the raids and not worry about various social nuisances. The PQs themselves are multi-stage, scripted events which can sometimes be as fun to watch as they are to participate in, though the sheer number of them spread about the game's many zones means that some are definitely more interesting than others.

PVE is also supplemented by the excellent "Tome of Knowledge," the game's included digital encyclopedia. Within this in-game book is everything the player could ever want to know about the world and its inhabitants; this is where the game's license really comes into its own. Hundreds of pages of lore dripping with sweet fantasy can be found. And the tome also comes equipped with countless quests for players to undertake at their leisure, ranging from a bestiary requiring X number of monster kills to a travel log requiring trips to far-away regions. All progress contributes to a vast set of exclusive rewards that include special titles, special tactics, and rare items.