Final Thoughts on Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning at Launch – Review Of WAR - Part 11: Conclusion

2008-09-26

Page content

Atmosphere (5 out of 5)

This is a big winner. Though the graphics aren’t the photorealistic beauty that a high-end, cutting-edge, rig can handle, they make the game playable when the screen gets crowded with effects. More importantly, they are well executed, along with the Audio and Writing. Altogether the game looks, sounds, and feels great. You find yourself in the midst of a massive conflict between ancient, powerful, and very distinct races. Everything in your surrounding pulls together to make this happen.

Gameplay (3 out of 5)

The three rating is representative of the game as is. Some parts are absolutely phenomenal, such as Public Quests and the variety and novelty of Careers you can choose from. Others are great but need a little work, like the Living Guilds, while some need a little more work than that, like the Tome of Knowledge.

The lack of polish (read number of small bugs) and excess of server downtime are what hold things down, along with the Order vs. Destruction population balance question. While the technical problems will almost certainly be overcome, the balance issue requires an elegant solution if players are going to stick with the game.

The Last Word (4 out of 5)

Well, not really, an MMO is a community and always changing, but we can at least bring our thoughts about week one to a close.

It is a fun game to play in a cool, immersive environment. It unfortunately needs more work to get the bugs out and servers settled down, but that is just a matter of time. Mythic will want to have things largely under control by the time the 30 days of game play included with purchase are up, though. Many players may decide to save some money and give things a chance to work out.

The balance question is not as obvious a problem right now, but neither is the solution. It may take a while before it really starts to affect players, but it might do so to a great extent when it is done.

If you love Fantasy MMORPG PvP, run out and get the game now. Many other people will have a lot of fun playing WAR, but they might want to wait a while and let the game find its footing.

Don’t worry; we will keep you posted.

This post is part of the series: First Impressions of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckonning

The game is finally live, but is it any good? Read and find out.