Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (War) Preview

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is not the game it once was, nor is it the game it may someday become. Confused? Well, let me explain …

A couple of years ago, before Mythic was purchased by EA, there was a media event for the massively multiplayer online title, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning – or WAR, for short. The game showed there was a next-gen outing, featuring a light-hearted graphical style similar to World of Warcraft with some notable upgrades. The animations were dynamic and full of character, and the world was full of wonder and delight with great texturing, dynamic lighting vistas worth exploring.

In short, it was what a triple-A title should be. Ok, transition to the present and the beta that just dropped the non-disclosure agreement and will allow discussion about the game. The first thing that hits is the look of the game. It has been altered dramatically. And by altered, that means downgraded. It appears that the team dropped the next-gen graphics and went back to the Gamebyro engine that was used on Dark Age of Camelot: Catacombs. If that is the case, that engine is more than four years old, and thus Warhammer Online does not look like a next-gen game – it looks like a game that is last generation with awkward animations that do little to immerse players in the world.

Granted the world is colorful, and this game does look better than DAoC, but not by much. Costume textures look painted on bodies rather than like clothing put on. The sound effects are redundant, with voices of NPCs repeating the same phrases over and over. There is no bump-mapping and the texturing appears flat. Characters don’t move naturally either. They look like they are running in mud or slow motion and the combat animations are not very good. An archer shooting a bow aims it more toward the sky (and the bowstring is notably absent) and does this high arc. If you see the arrow, it seems to be traveling at half speed and magically tracks the target, altering course in mid-flight.

You can enter auto combat, delivering blows off the in-built timer, but it is very slow, and you are better off using the skills you have, even if they do consume mana, to get off attacks quicker.

Let’s face it, WAR has to compete with WoW and with the likes of Age of Conan, and in that regard, graphically speaking, the game fails. So when the graphics fail, the game had better have gameplay depth to sustain it. And WAR does have some nice realm-versus-realm elements, and siege elements but to get there, you will have to run through the well-worn miasma of “go here, kill X amount of these things.” There is a story thread that does not hold much of this together.

If you have been following the news concerning the game, you will know that some of the fundamental elements that were first outlined as part of the game will be missing – like all of the racial capitol cities (with the exception of two hub cities that will serve as factional capitols), and four of the character classes that were initially announced have also been cut. What has moved into the game is decidedly Dark Age of Camelot in tone. While it would be vastly unfair to say that WAR is looking more like Warhammer skins on DAoC, the similarities are profound and may obscure WAR from having its own character … initially.

The quest system does expand to grand scales, with boss battles that will require players to team up (known as the Public Quests). The way the Public Quests work, fundamentally speaking, is that players jump into a special zone and attack one of the mega-creatures. You have to be joined by others to win the battle and your share of the experience points is determined by your participation in the fight. You can even draw lots for the dropped loot.

As to the overall combat scheme, there is still work to be done. One of the newer classes added is the White Lion, a pet class attached to the high elves on the side of Order. You summon a war lion to fight beside you. This has some issues with the lion encountering pathing problems. And it truly points out the problems with the combat AI. Here is what happened on several occasions, as a lower-level character. The target was spotted and the lion was sent in to attack, to draw the aggro of the mob. As with some MMOs, the minute the pet got within aggro range, the mob ran past it to attack the pet’s owner, in this case the White Lion. When the pet arrived at the point where the mob had been, and obviously was not any more, it turned to give chase. So far, so good. But two-thirds of the way to the pet’s owner, the mob reverses its field and runs back (sometimes the animations shows it sliding backwards, and not running at all) to where it was when the whole sequence started. The pet, now apparently confused, turns and runs in place for a while, not actually gaining any ground, but not attacking either. And the targeted mob, because it has not been physically engaged, drops aggro on the player and the pet and returns to a non-aggressive stance – which means another player who is hunting the same mob and has been patient can then attack and claim the mob.

What does all that mean? EA/Mythic has some work ahead of it and only a month to do it in unless the release date slides.

When it comes to Realm-versus-Realm, no one does it better than Mythic (or EA/Mythic) and the game is very solid in that regard. Factions will be able to battle for control of zones and gain factional standing. There were some skills in the beta that were purely frustrating (like when a high-level tank class could pick up a player behind the other skirmish line and drop him or her into a group of waiting tanks to beat on until they were quite dead – especially when they picked on a class that was a support class), but generally the RvR tests were entertaining and challenging.

Warhammer Online bears a lot of resemblance, in terms of gameplay and general graphical look, to Dark Age of Camelot. That is both good news and bad. The good news is that DAoC is a good game, and if an MMO had to emulate a title, DAoC is a good one to pick. The bad news is that, as it stands now (based on the beta, mind you), WAR is not a next-gen MMO, and can’t compete with the triple-A titles that are out there. But the game is still a month away from release, unless that slides, and Mythic has a great development team that is capable of achieving a lot in a short time frame.