Review of Warhammer

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE VIDEOS ARE IN LOW QUALITY UNLESS YOU DOWNLOAD THEM. PLEASE DOWNLOAD THEM TO SEE THE TRUE QUALITY.

Okay, I am going to start off by saying that this game far exceeded anything I previously thought of it. I had very high expectations, and yet the game still blew my mind. From the minute I logged in and started taking part in the first quest until my 28th hour in the beta, I enjoyed every second of it. There is always something to do, regardless of your level, class, or what time you are on!

Scenarios

There are scenarios that you can take part in at any time, as long as enough people are signed up for it. More or less there are different types of scenarios, but you can only join them from certain map areas. The three game types are "Domination," "King of the Hill," and "Capture the flag." In these games you earn Renown points and Experience, along with the chance to loot gold and items off enemy players you kill in combat!

In Domination there are three different "control points," if you will. The two teams, Order and Destruction, fight to take over these. Touching the flag will start a count-down to controlling these. Now if another enemy stands in the same area, whether you are fighting or not, the timer will stop. You must keep the areas near the flags as clear as possible. Now each flag gives a certain number of points per time, of which I am unsure of the exact number at this time. Your goal is to get 500 points, however, to win. Usually these games will not last much longer than nine or ten minutes.

In Capture the Flag matches, there is one flag in the middle of the zone, and three different points around the map. Both teams struggle to pick up the flag and take it to the three points, but there is a timer of a minute to do so once you grab the flag. It seems once you touch an area you get your timer reset, however, so as long as you can touch one per minute you're fine. The flag emits a huge light that makes it very easy to find you for enemy players, though. This is one of the types that requires the most teamwork. In terms of score, if a team takes the flag to all three points they earn 200 points. For every kill that someone gets, your team earns 1 point. The goal is to earn 500 points total.

In King of the Hill matches, both teams get an orb of some sort. The scoring for this game is 1 point per kill, however if you kill the person who owns the orb on the enemy team or if your person that has the orb kills an enemy you earn an increased point count, of which I am unsure of the number. Again, the point of this match is to earn 500 points before the enemies do.

A video of a scenario is located here

Keeps

There are many different keeps that can be claimed all over the world. Each map has a keep and two different "objective points." The goal with these is to own as many as you can, as they give benefits such as added experience and renown during pvp matches. The best part about these is that they are siegable 24/7! There is always something going on at at least one keep, sometimes even more than one!

How it Works

Once you get even near a keep zone, you will see a timer before you are automatically flagged for "RvR," which is "Realm vs. Realm." From this point on, enemy players are able to kill you as often as they want, or you can kill them as much as you want! If you die, you get returned to the nearest war camp that you have unlocked.

If the enemy owns the objective points, you will see 5 guards outside them. You must kill the 5 guards and then touch the enemy flag for a timer, which depends on how many enemies are near it. If you successfully get the timer down and take over the flag, it will be put in "defensive" mode for your side, and you must keep the enemy away from it for three minutes. Upon doing so you will then get a 15 minute "safe" period where enemies can not attack it or take it over. After this is over it is back to normal where they can take over it at any time.

In terms of keeps there are many, many guards outside, for whoever owns it. If you are attacking, you are able to go inside and purchase ballista to put on top of the keep, and even attack from up top. In the middle, above the door, there is also an "oil" guy that spills oil all over the battering rams your enemies put outside the door. For attacking you will get ballista outside the castle that you can use to help you with your assault. The goal is to break into the castle through the door, then go to the top and slay the Lord. Upon doing this your side will then own the keep. If there is a rank 6 guild, they can place a flag inside, which gives buffs to everyone around it on your team, such as +25% run speed. If there is a rank 11 guild, they can actually own that keep. Keep in mind that these can be sieged any time of the day or night as well!

A video of us rushing a keep is located here

A picture showing a keep on a map is located here. At the bottom of the screen you will see two shield icons. Those are objective points owned by Order. At the bottom left you will see a red castle, which is the keep owned by Destruction. The sword icons you see are where battles are actively going on. You will always know exactly where to go for a battle! This is a map of just one of the many areas(20+) where there are keeps.

Public Quests

There are many, many different public quests that are found around the world. In every chapter of the game there are usually 2-3 different quests that you can partake in, publicly. What happens is you just enter the zone of whatever quest you would like to do, and you are instantly added into the quest! Everyone in the area is working together on the same quest, so their progression helps you as well. There is also no limit to how many people can take part.

At the end of the quest is a loot roll. It first decides who all contributed the most and ranks you as such for extra points. The #1 contributer earns an extra 400 points, for example. Then it does a random roll. This means that the person who was afk could get first prize or the person getting #1 contribution could get last prize. Winners get a bag where you choose between 8 different prizes or so, so you even choose what you want to obtain.

Also, while doing the quest goals, you will earn Influence. This is used to buy prizes from a npc. You will get one prize for each rank, 3 ranks per chapter. The best plan with these is to max out influence to earn the blue reward armor or weapons. Public quest bags, however, can also drop purple items. A picture of a quest log for a PQ, along with showing rewards is located here.

Keep in mind that there is no set order in which you must do the public quests. You can do which ones you want and skip the ones you do not want.

Normal Quests

There are many normal quests that you are able to take part in as well. These can consist of things such as "Go find this" or "Go kill that," but if you get quests from a war camp, near a pvp area, you can even get quests where the only goal is to kill enemy players! Quests reward with experience, gold, and sometimes items. Along with this, all pvp quests are repeatable.

Guilds

Guilds in Warhammer are alive! They actually level up, just as everyone else does. As guild members progress through pvp, scenarios, public quests, or normal quests, the guild gains experience and levels up. You can always see how much experience the guild has and how close it is to gaining the next level, by looking at the guild menu. There are also many other things you will find here. Note that guilds can level to 40, just as other players can.

Guild leaders have full control over privleges set forth in their guild, and even have 5 ranks that they can re-name on their own! You choose what privleges everyone has, or what privleges they do not have.

At level 3, one of the best features is a calendar in-game. This will allow you to set up events and then people can sign up to it in-game! Once they sign up you can choose to accept them into the event or deny them. You also have the ability to allow allies to sign up.

This first picture is showing the main page, where you input your email address, website address, and tells information about your guild. Click Here
This next picture is showing the Calendar system. The green dot beside my name means I was accepted into the event I made. Click Here
This picture shows a list of your guild Standards, that give buffs. These are the flags you can put up. Click Here
This picture shows the benefits you obtain as your guild levels. There would be too many to list so here are a few. Click Here
This picture shows the privleges you can set to members. All of it is customizable. Click Here

A video showing everything on the guild menu is located Here

Groups

In terms of groups they are very, very easy to find. There is an icon for groups, located below your character's portrait. Clicking this will show Open Groups in your area. To join just click "Join!" No invites necessary for these. A group, if it is turned into a warband, can hold up to 24 players. You can create your own open group as well, as they are open by default. Alternatively you can close it so only people you invite can join, or anyone with a password you set can join. It is best to just leave it as open, however, unless you already have a pre-set group you want.

The groups you will find are within around a 10 minute run from you. If you scroll over the group's bar you will find out where they are, and if you join it you will see them either on your map or you can skip through maps to the one they are on and then still see them(You don't need to be in the same zone!) Along with this, it tells you how long it should take you to get to them from your current location. If it says 2 minutes it should take you 2 minutes to get to them. On the right side you will find the type as well, RvR, PvE(And their chapter,) or PQ(And their chapter/quest name.) This makes it extremely easy to find people who are working on the same quests you still need.

A video showing the group menu and people on the map is located here. Please note that it is poor quality, but still isn't that bad.

Mass PvP

There is often Mass PvP out in the general world. I did not get the chance to record many of them, but one of our best ones I did. This battle consisted of over 30 people on our side and about 40 on theirs. Our battle lasted for about 2 hours before they finally pushed in and took our flag, and then we went back and dominated them again. During that time, however, they had another group that stole our keep. The video of our pvp is located here.

Bugs

Amazingly there are very few bugs in the game. There are a couple keeps where the guards can't be attacked and where they shoot through walls, and there are a few text errors(like on rolling it will say "Anonymous has rolled greed for Anonymous." In terms of game-breaking issues there aren't any. When and if bugs are reported they are fixed as soon as possible, which seems to be pretty fast. Overall I would rate their service an A+. Along with this there were a few exploits people used during beta, but they were tracked down promptly and corrected(leveling exploits.)

Farmers

If farmers do end up going to Warhammer there is not much they can do. First of all Mythic will ensure that they are taken care of, and along with this there is no real farming in the game. Everything can be obtained by quests and pvp! No more having to farm for 5-10 hours for one item. Instead just keep doing what you love the most and earn the items like that.

The World

Honestly, I don't even know what to put here. The world is so huge you wouldn't believe it unless you saw it. If you have played Age of Conan, each map in War is the size of 3-4 full zones of AOC, and yet there are over 20 different maps, with more being added later. In one of the maps, there is even an underground world that is so huge that on max settings you cannot even see the walls when standing in the middle of it. In here there are many different quests, mobs, etc. I went ahead and skipped making a video because the main city, for example(Inevitable City for Destruction) takes over 2 hours to run around the entire thing. And that is if you don't really stop to look at things, that is pure run time.

My Rating

Service - 10/10
Graphics - 9/10
Sounds - 9/10
Game Play - 10/10
Quests - 10/10