Gaming and Geekery

So I've been playing Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning since a few days before launch and I have to say that it has been by far the best MMORPG experience I've had since the beginning.

As a brief overview, my first experience with the MMO genre wasUltima Online. From there, it went to EverQuest, then Anarchy Online, Final Fantasy XI, EverQuest II, World of WarCraft, Star Wars Galaxies, World of WarCraft (Again), EQ2 (Again), and then I gave up on them altogether. In all of the games that I had played, all of them failed to live up to the expectations that I had.

There was always something missing. Perhaps in my mind, I expected that enhanced interaction with the game world itself was needed. But not just the world, but with other players as well. Too few games offer true, meaningful player versus player versus environment (PvPvE) experiences. Warhammer Online delivers.

To think for a moment that you can play the game to its fullest without PvP (player versus player) combat is ridiculous. While the vast majority of their servers offer what they call RvR (Realm versus Realm) gameplay, the Open RvR servers are where the real action is at. This allows full PvP combat anywhere in the world in addition to their PvP Scenarios, RvR battlefields, and public quests.

A public quest is, essentially, a raid style quest that anyone can join without having to go through careful organization. They typically come along with a new chapter to your characters' faction's story, and are offered in three scripted phases. Progression through each opens a more challenging objective and usually ends in a battle with one or more Champion or Hero-grade opponents. At the very end, your contribution to the quest is weighed against a random loot table and if you place within the first five spots, you get something out of it.

The best gear comes from contributing to the war effort. In every major region of the world, there is at least one battlefield where the factions can gain control. Controlling a region allows for better prices when buying/selling to merchants, enhanced gold and/or experience rewards, etc. Needless to say, it makes someone want to get into the war effort.

In the end, there is truly much more than I can hope to get into without getting ridiculously long-winded, so I'll jump ahead to customer service and such.

At time of writing, they had banned thousands of accounts for attempted gold selling. As any MMO player should be aware, all of the major (and even the minor) MMO's on the market are plagued with gold farmers and sellers who will spam your tells and/or your in-game mailboxes with advertisements for "phat lewt," "cheep gold," or "powerlvling." The CSR's in Warhammer do not fool around. Nor will they tolerate violations to the naming policy, either, which has brought quite the smile to my face.

Ultimately, my experience with this game has been the best so far. It is truly a masterpiece with the best launch I've experienced and I eagerly await new content from the masterminds behind this game.

Hats off to you, Mythic.