The Fifth Star comes to WARFollow

Isn't this the guild that Tyr announced was disbanding?

order or destruction?

Can't The WAR forums don't exist as far as moving threads is concerned.

I'm torn on whether I'm going to try WAR or not. I've never played Warhammer in any form before, so the rabid fandom is a little off-putting.

Open Beta starts soon so you'll be able to get in on that (or if not I'm pretty sure I have extra codes).

I'll be playing greenskin for sure, just hard to pick which one! Squig Herder will probably win the day.



I hope the fanatics aren't as bad as the FFXIers. I doubt anyone could be though.

Edited, Aug 29th 2008 2:42pm by baelnic

It's there, just gotta scroll WAY down.

I just don't feel like I can do another quest-grind MMO. It was very novel in the beginning of WoW, and was one of the things that let me get my 70 even with a casual play schedule. But after getting one character to 70, I lost all motivation to level up an alt, and just lost interest in the lonely world of solo quest-grinding. Sadly, it seems that all new MMOs coming out in recent years have been made in WoW's image (LotRO, Vanguard, AoC, etc.). They are all just solo quest-grinds, and it seems that WAR is shaping up to be the same.

I just wonder if a new AAA commercial MMORPG will ever be party-centric again like the "traditional MMOs".

I have been hearing people talk about this. Can anyone give any info on this "everything you do levels you up" thing? Does anyone have any good links that explain the system? I would be interested in WAR if it doesn't make me solo quest-grind.

WoW tried to have several ways to level up, but of course, everyone goes for the most time economical way: questing.

Off the top of my head, here are the ways you level up:

Quests

Killing stuff (straightforward grinding) - I hardly did any of this unless something was in my way from point A to point B.

Public Quests - where you cooperatively work with others grouped or not, it doesn't matter - a typical Public Quest scenario - fight 20 minions (1st wave), pick up some items in the area (i.e., kegs of beer)(2nd wave), fight tougher minions, then finally take down the boss mob. Depending on how well you do, (i.e., quest participation, number of kills, amount of healing) you will be ranked. I'm not sure of the particular details of the mechanics, but basically you get some reward and the top 3 players get to loot a chest from the boss mob. Now, if you don't reach that top level during that quest, no worries - the quest resets about 2 minutes after the completion of the previous one and you can do it over and over. Not only do you get level experience, but you also get Influence points. These can be used to purchase items that are on 3 tiers of items to choose one item from - 3 potions, 3 armor pieces, and 2 weapons (I think, it could be 3).

Realm vs. Realm pvp instance leveling - great fun and absolutely worthwhile to do. There is a camp in every major zone that has Renown merchants where you can spend Renown points (I thought it was spelled Reknown, but oh well). These points are earned over time while you level up - say, from level 6 to level 11 and after each RvR instance, you can hit up the Renown armor merchant and the Renown weapon merchant and upgrade your gear, depending on your Renown points you've gained. It's really, really easy to attain and max out your gear after a few pvp instances. There is usually 2 repeatable quests (one that gives out experience points and another that gives out experience points and coins) that you can quickly level up and develop a healthy amount of coinage to save up for your mount at level 20.

Realm vs. Realm pvp non-instanced - Also great fun, like particpating in battles - no solo ganking here - death, by the way (note as in all aspects of the game - is of little consequence at least at the early levels). If you don't know your role in cooperative pvp fighting, you will die, and die a lot. Likewise, if others that you fight near don't know their roles, you will also probably die. The beauty of all of this is when everyone knows their roles (healer, dps, tank) and it's truly epic fun. Again, level experience, coinage, items to roll for, Renown points, etc.

I didn't participate in crafting, so I can't speak of it.

Also, your guild can level up (like in EQ2). When you reach certain levels, new guild options open like a guild calendar, for instance.

If others can provide further info or clarify what I mentioned, please feel free to do so.

The Tome of Knowledge is an awesome addition to the mmorpg game. It records all your earned titles (if you die a lot, you earn "Run Away!" as a title, if you click on yourself too much, you gain the title, "Ow! My Eye!", and so forth. It tracks your quests, provides awesome lore information (when you encounter a particular beastie or enemy, their information comes up to provide background information. Likewise, when you encounter popular Warhammer persons, their history/information will be added to your tome. I imagine crafting info is also provided as you discover stuff. Oh, locations are added as well.

* I wasn't positive about crafting giving level experience, so I removed it.
If I think of other stuff, I'll provide later.

Edited, Aug 29th 2008 8:33pm by Snorre

I have no idea what you mean by Vanguard being a "traditional MMO". Vanguard is nearly 100% solo quest-grinding all the way to level cap. Vanguard mostly failed due to horrible stability. Hell, it's unstable right now, long after release. It was almost completely unplayable the first 3 months, so even the players that tried to stick it out through their free month still got nothing, and ended up canceling. The playerbase of Vanguard is mostly players that joined it after it became playable.

And honestly, I don't know what you are citing by saying that the minority of WoW engage in PvP. As far as I know, no stats have eben released on how many players PvP vs. PvE only, so I think you are making things up.

So about the "proof that what you want doesn't pay the bills" thing, that isn't true either, because no AAA MMO has come out since WoW that has not been quest-centric.

Also, WoW never hit 12 milllion subscribers, so once again, I don't know what you are getting your "facts". WoW has about 2.5 million subscribers in North America, with their largest chunk (over 5 million) playing in China on the Chinese servers. The rest are in Europe and other areas. This info comes from MMOChart, the only neutral source of MMO subscriber info.

Don't get me wrong. WoW is the mainstream. WoW is MMORPGs in most people's eyes. But WoW is not the juggernaut that has 10 million North American subscriptions like some sources would want you to believe.

I also think that given some time, a developer will attempt to go back to traditional MMO style games once they see that WoW clones are just not cutting it (Vanguard, LotRO, EQ2, etc. just not doing as well as they wanted to).

Edited, Aug 30th 2008 6:25pm by dacypher

Has anyone here even played Vanguard?! Why does everyone say that Vanguard is a traditional MMORPG? I played it to level cap, and not once did I group, set up camp and kill monsters for experience! No one did. Granted, compared to WoW, there are more quests that require grouping, but you definetely gain levels from questing. It is quest-based like all other MMOs since WoW. The last AAA MMO to be launched that was not quest-based was EQ2, but they quickly threw their first updates at it and made it quest-based within about 2 months of launch to make it more "WoW-like" (these were in the first updates where they added rest xp, etc.)

In regards to WoW's subscription numbers, they have not hit 11 million, let alone 12. Subscriptions have sat cozily at right around 10 million ever since that milestone was reached. Blizzard has been very happy to make a press-release every time they hit a new million marker, and nothing has been released about 11.

Also, as far as Vanguard failing for their game design, I am not sure how you could say that as a fact. By far the most logical explanation would be that a player could not stayed logged in for more than 5 minutes after launch without getting a "critical error" and the client crashing. If this continues through your entire free month subscription, chances are quite low that you will keep your account open once you are being charged. Even for those brave few that did, at the 3 months point, it was not much better. A case could be made much more easily that stability is what killed Vanguard, coupled with a "been-there-done-that Tolkein-esque" fantasy setting that brought nothing new to the table. I see no evidence that Vanguard failed due to being a "traditional MMO", even though it was not.

As far as my reasoning for bringing up the nationalities of WoW's playerbase, this was in regard to him saying that I am in the 1% minority of MMO players when you look at the "12 million players" of WoW versus the low numbers of traditional MMORPGs. I mentioned it because if you actually take the 2.5 million NA players (since most new MMOs created in America typically target NA) of WoW and add in the other quest-based games, then compare it to the players still playing traditional MMOs (which are all now at least 3 years old or older) it is probably more around 25% in NA. I only brought it up because saying only 1% of potential players for a new MMO would consider a traditional MMO is simply not true.

You have not played Vanguard. Killing monsters in Vanguard gets you about as much xp as killing monsters in LotRO (almost nothing compared to questing).



It's what the mainstream market wants. It's also important for me to note that when I am talking about a new, traditional MMO, I am not talking about a game that will wipe out WoW, or even hit 1 million subscribers. I am only referring to a game that could capture a portion of the market (even if its a niche market) and do as well as it anticipated. I don't see how anyone could possibly just say "no, that won't happen ever again", particularly considering that WoW, and the army of WoW clones have only been dominating the market for less than 3 years. A game could still be a "traditional MMO" while changing up the formula to be less repetitive. It will just take good game design, and that is something we have not seen in a while.



No, I am not making up random numbers. You should actually check the numbers on MMOchart.com. There are roughly 2.5 million North American subscribers to WoW. My numbers are an estimation, but they are not "made up".

Anyway, what I am saying is that a traditional MMO could make it today if done right. There are definitely problems with the formula, and that I don't deny. If a new game like that was to come out, it would need to deal with the issues of repetitive combat. This is not that hard (I have about 10 ideas that would help). There are also problems with mid-to-high level players sitting around with nothing to do while they wait for a group. This could be fixed by making a hybrid of both quest-based and traditional, so players could solo-quest and make xp while waiting for a group. Just make grouping reward about 20% more experience in the long-run over questing. In a way, this is almost like WoW. At mid to high levels, running an instance can net more xp than the same amount of time spent solo questing due to all the running around. So, this idea is not that new or crazy.

Edited, Aug 31st 2008 4:07pm by dacypher

Edited, Aug 31st 2008 4:08pm by dacypher

You haven't played it, though, and you're being purposely obtuse. You said group-grinding, you weasely little *****. You know what that implied and now you're back-pedaling. Group content is more effective in any MMO, or MMO-Lite like WoW and WAR; the best rewards will always come from cooperative rather than solo play.

Fact is, it's not "traditional" MMOs(whatever that means) that are dead or dieing. It's MMOs in general. WoW and its subsequent lemmings aren't MMOs, they're single-player games with the option of group play thrown in. Watered down, dumbed-down playschool garbage, made for kids your age and younger. There was a time when the average MMO player was in their thirties. Now if we want to continue to linger in the shadow of the genre we have to cater to lazy kids.