Thursday, October 28, 2010

Generic WAR post.

Werit had a post yesterday about some PvE content being apart of Thanquol's Incursion, the new 24v24 rvr instance on the test realm. What caught my eye wasn't something in the post, but the first comment and Werit's response to the comment.

The comment was along the lines of not being happy with having to grind another twenty levels of renown when the new RvR content goes live. To which Werit responds by saying that he doesn't feel it's a grind and no matter how long it takes, he's going to enjoy the ride. That right there my friends is an awesome attitude and it really struck home with me.

Now let's go back a few days to a post on Bootae's blog about play styles in oRvR. It's a post about how some players prefer running solo, some will only run with a group and how either way is fine, but to be a well rounded pvper, it's best to try and learn to do both. Sounds simple right? Well for some it's not.

So what do either of these posts have to do with one another, or anything for that matter? They made me think about how I play and view my time in WAR. Last week I made a post about WAR and how I was going to tough it out in T4. Well as it turns out, that didn't last long, cause a few hours after that post I cancelled my sub to WAR. I made that post then proceeded to play some awful oRvR for about an hour, so I told myself that I have had enough. It was the last day before the next billing cycle and I figured that I would just stick with the Endless Trial instead.

Being the stubborn type, I decide to jump back on with my Black Orc and for the next three hours or so I had the most fun in T4 to date! That day wasn't about zerging or rage quitting if things went bad, it was about discipline and control. The warband I was in followed instructions, they didn't complain and most importantly it seemed that everyone was having fun. Not only did we have a successful zone flip, we also had a successful city siege, it was great. Needless to say I have an active account once more.

The moral of the story is that there's no reason to be in a rush, there's always something to do in WAR and most of all just enjoy it.

Monday, October 18, 2010

The WAAAAAAGH....

Well it's just over half way through the month of October and I have yet to post anything. So while thinking or something to write about I decided to look through some of my older posts when one caught my eye. It was a post on April 16th of this year and it so happened to be about Warhammer Online.

A few weeks ago the unruly folks over at Multiplaying.Net started playing Warhammer Online again and talking about it on their podcast. I have always felt that on paper WAR is the MMO I should love the most: multiple races with differing starting areas, lots of PvE, and varied PvP gameplay that I can participate at my discretion. I think the main sticking point for me is the PvE content; the quests are really well written, seem pretty varied at times, but there is so much running around and the level grind was tough to stomach after playing WoW so much.


But I decided to use my Call to Arms 10 day free play, and I have been reminded of why I both like and dislike the game. I will say that leveling seems to be going much faster now, primarily due to the huge amounts of rest xp I have, so that was a pleasant surprise, but there is still a lot of running around at my level. In the short amount of time I did play that was really the only complaint that I had with the game, it's been a lot of fun doing scenarios and running around doing oRvR in T2.

But my free play ends today and with all the hockey going on right now I will not be reactivating my account. At least not yet. I figure that once the first round of the NHL playoffs are over there will be more time to play games, but right now I am DVR-ing everthing and watching games before and after work, I love it.

I bring this up because WAR has been my MMO of choice for the past two months, and pretty much my game of choice really. I don't remember how much WAR I had played before this most recent stint, but I do know that I had a very different mindset about what I was looking to get out of the game.
When I wrote that post in April, I was still looking at WAR as a pve game with optional pvp content to satisfy me, but it's the other way around. WAR is a pvp game with pve content used to fill time when there is no oRvR going on. Back in August when I resubbed, I started of questing and leveling till about rank 6. At that point I thought I would see if there was any action going on in T1 oRvR, and it was at that point when my experience with WAR changed. No longer was I looking to quest, level and do some PQ's, I was only interested in how many Destro players I could kill from that point on. That was of course when I was playing my Engineer, I have since gone back and spent most my time with my Black Orc.
But not everything has been peaches and cream. T2 pvp was awesome, it was fun and it was easy to get into. T3 was when the game slowed down for me and finding consistent oRvR was a pain. I eventually had to resort to questing in order to rank up and to gain some gold, cause pvp was not making me rich and it was an extremely slow way to gain rank.
Then came T4. Once I hit r30 I immediately headed to T4 looking for some oRvR. Unfortunately the game really changes in T4, and my first impression was not positive. Frankly the pvp is not as accessible as the previous three tiers and the game becomes very gear dependant, something that turned me off to WoW's pvp.
The thing is I still love WAR. I love the look, the content, the pacing of the combat, but I don't love the lack of oRvR when I am eager for some and the pacing of the game really slows down by the time you make it to T4. So what does the future hold for me and WAR? For now I plan on toughing it out in T4 with my Black Orc while messing around with the various other characters I have. I do love this game.