WAR Open Beta Impressions

So I've been playing in the WAR "open" beta for the last week. Here are my impressions thus far:

PvE: This is a big "meh", with the exception of PQs. All the normal quests are of the same "kill x of y" that you've done 400 million times in every other MMO. The greenskin quests have a cool flavor (one of the early ones involves shooting yourself out of a catapult" but once the humor and the uncontrollable urge to shout "WAAAAGH!!" all the time wears off, they're pretty much the same as well. I honestly haven't done a normal quest in 5 or 6 levels.

Dungeons also seem like an afterthought. My character is level 12 (out of 40). By this point in WoW I would have had the opportunity to do several dungeons; in WAR I haven't even seen one. I've heard in previews that there are, in fact, dungeons to be crawled, but that they're all limited to a single 6-man party. Unless Mythic can do considerably better than blizzard at creating small dungeons (not likely, but who knows), I think what dungeons there are will be run a few times and then forgotten.

PQs, on the other hand, are a cool new addition. My experience is that you will either love them or hate them. Personally, I have a good time doing them. They're second only to Guild Wars missions in terms of enjoyable low-level PvE. Plus, even if you're like me and get fucked on loot rolls (I almost always get a gold contribution, but only win a loot bag about 1/4-1/3rd of the time) you still accrue influence, which you can trade in for some decent rewards. Plus, the need for tanks and healers means that those classes have a venue for PvE leveling where they won't be gimped.

On a related note, Open groups are an elegant solution to the LFG problem. No more spamming LFG/LFM in chat, just open the window and join an open party that's doing what you want to be doing. While I doubt it will work well in dungeons, for open RvR and PQs it works great. In WAR, I rarely have to fight alone thanks to open groups.

Also, crafting. I almost forgot to mention crafting, because right now it is pretty much lol. There may be a point to it, but I don't really give a flying fuck. I think there's a profession that works kind of like jewlcrafting/enchanting in WoW, but that's as much as I've cared to find out.

Overall, if you really like PvE, save your money. With the exception of PQs, there's nothing you can find here that isn't done way better by at least one other game.

PvP: This is really the meat of the game, and so far I am pretty impressed. WAR's zones are designed with RvR combat in mind. Every zone has a central RvR area with objectives to capture and no PvE type stuff to get in the way. Its like old school BRM, only in every zone. The only real downside is that things tend to get zergy in these zones.

Scenarios are, of course, the WAR equivalent to WoW's BGs. Except that there are a lot more of them. Already I've played in 6, and I still have two more tiers of content to go. Mythic goes with more of an FPS philosophy, where every map has similar mechanics but a vastly different layout. The philosophy seems geared more towards simply providing even teams and objectives for them to fight over as opposed to trying to make a bunch of unique minigames. Which approach holds up in the long run has yet to be seen, but I really enjoy the variety of maps present.

If you like the hypercompetitive world of WoW arenas, this is also not your game. WAR's focus is on RvR, to the point where you can't even duel players from your own realm. There are no controlled small-scale deathmatches, everything is at least 10 to a side and objective based.

But if you enjoyed old school world PvP and BGs, WAR will be exactly what you're looking for. As I said, the nature of mythic's zone design ensures that there's always some open-world PvP happening, and that it will be easy to find. While it does tend to get a bit too TM/SS-zerg-ish for my tastes, there's always the option to fly around until you find a zone with the level of activity you're looking for.

Keep sieges are also pretty cool. I finally had the chance to participate in a siege the other day (destruction usually controls all the t2 keeps on my server, and order rarely tries to take them), and I must say that despite the lag (which was actually not too bad considering my ancient PC), I had a lot of fun. The whole process is pretty intense, with siege weapons randomly gibbing you, casters swapping spells from atop the walls, and healers frantically trying to keep the melee on the ram up through a deluge of boiling oil. Then when you break in, there's some champion NPCs and a keep lord to kill (along with a horde of defending players, of course!). With the lord slain, you gain control of the keep and there's a PQ-type loot roll. I ended up getting the top slot and some nice rare boots. Karma making for my shitty PQ luck!

Mythic also has a system in place that makes doing scenarios or open RvR a worthwhile endeavor for lowbies. Basically, whenever you're in an RvR zone, your stats will be scaled up to approximate a level 8, 18, 28, or 38 character. You aren't as strong, but you can still make a solid contribution.

You can also level through PvP, which has been my method. Its nice to be able to do what you want, instead of having to do things you don't want before you can do what you want. Mythic has done a lot of effort in ensuring lowbie RvR is a good option. XP and gold gain is at a decent rate, and there is a ton of gear that you can buy as you level up. And while the item art in general pales in comparison to vanilla WoW/WotLK, having matching gear at low levels is a big plus.

Mechanics: The combat system is on par with Guild Wars. It is very simple and easy to pick up, but it has a ton of strategic depth. Action points regen at a rate low enough that you can't spam AP moves non-stop, but high enough that with smart playing, you always have enough to do what you need to.

My class, the Disciple of Khaine, also has a secondary resource pool of "soul essence", which is built up by anything that costs AP, and is used to power your heals. Also, your best heal is actually a melee attack that does some damage and heals for 250% of the damage caused, and two of your AP-based melee attacks are also weak heals themselves, so there is enough overlap that you aren't totally fucked if you run dry on one resource. But careful management will yield much better results.

Collision detection is also a welcome mechanic. Being able to generate peels or stop advances just by body-blocking opens up a lot of interesting choices in combat: Do I charge in with the tanks and other melee, keeping them up and adding my physical presence to our push, or do I hang back and lineback for the casters, keeping opposing melee under control and healing up clothies that are getting pounded, letting more tanks stay up front?

Balance: I can't really say much about this, because the game hasn't been played for nearly long enough. However, mythic's almost total non-focus on PvE may give them the freedom they need to hone PvP balance to a fine edge. Even if things stay unbalanced though, the focus on large groups should give the win to whichever side is better organized.

Conclusion: WAR is a niche game. A large niche, perhaps, but it still doesn't have the kind of broad-based appeal that WoW does.

If you wax nostalgic about the old days of TM/SS, BRM, and organized guild WSG groups duking it out for nothing more than bragging rights, WAR may very well be the game for you. If you like a more competitive esport-like PvP, or PvE in general, WoW will still be the champ.

Overall, I expect WAR to do well, and it will certainly push blizzard to improve areas of WoW that are sorely lacking. I will 100% be playing at release, and I expect quite a few old-school WoW PvPers burnt out by arenas will too.