After an awesome night in LOTRO running two of the three Annuminas instances with one kin-mate and several very cool and skilled pickup players, I went to bed but was fairly wired and unable to sleep, so I popped into WAR for about an hour and queued up for my first scenario, Nordenwatch, and worked on a few PvE quests while I waited.
Before I start describing the RvR, I just want to say this, and I’m only saying this once: WAR players are not allowed to say any other game has crappy character animations unless they admit WAR does too. There, now that that’s off my chest, let’s continue.
I load into Nordenwatch and everyone just kinda stands around. Is there an invisible wall somewhere we cannot pass until the match starts? No idea yet, but everyone stood still at the starter line until the flag girl shook her booty, fired her gun in the air, and the race was off! Nordenwatch is a standard “capture the control points” map and is limited to 12 vs. 12. I’m so massively impressed by the massive scope of the first massive PvP in this brand-new massively multiplayer game… 
Ok, fine, it’s just a Scenario and supposed to be the introduction to RvR. Oh, and I still don’t know what RvR actually means. I know what the abbreviation stands for, but I don’t know the big-picture meaning behind it. So far this is just instanced two-faction PvP, nothing more. For that matter, I don’t even know if there is a big-picture meaning behind “RvR” other than Mythic has the trademark on the phrase. I really, really hope “RvR” is more than just a trademarked synonym for “PvP” but if that’s all it is then I’ll have to chalk up RvR as yet another pre-conceived notion and assumption I came into the game with.
Anyway, back to Nordenwatch. We rush forward and a few of us stop to capture the nearby control point. At first I’m thinking “oh great, yet another MMO with captures and not a single indication of the state or progress of the actual capturing.” Scanning the UI I finally noticed the little panel that shows each control point and a progress bar indicating each point’s status. Bravo, Mythic. The armies of… oh wait, only 12 players each… the squads of Destruction and Order met at the second control point where the exact same chaotic and generic PvP I see in any other game took place. I’m not seeing the value of “PvP tanking” at this early stage of the game. If I’m a huge muscle-bound hulk with a shield the size of a barn door I can body-block someone in a hallway. However, on a football field someone can simply walk around me with no effort whatsoever. That’s not even taking into consideration the ranged attackers who can shoot or sling spells right past me. John was complaining about a lack of tanks in Nordenwatch, and I’m left wondering why tanks would matter at all in Nordenwatch? Can I body-block the enemies? I remember that was supposed to be the case but they seemed to get through me with no problems, and obviously getting around me would never be an issue anyway. It was really cool that my own team could body-block me however, preventing me from moving and from contributing to the gang-banging of the enemy characters.
A few deaths and respawns later, the Order squad was at the first control point. Uh, oh! Looks like Destruction might be getting its ass kicked this round when suddenly — game over, Destruction wins! Huh? Order was almost to our base and we win? Oh yeah, I probably should have actually paid attention to that little UI panel, eh? Lesson learned.
I queued up again and the next match went exactly the same as the first. Order made it to that first control point yet again and they won the match. At least this time I saw it coming on the UI panel so I knew Order was winning.
On the plus side, it was great that my character (apparently?) was buffed during RvR to be a little more competitive and able to participate. All of the Order characters I managed to target and hit (at least I think I hit them?) were rank 6 through 10, and Draevus is only rank 4. He did reach Renown Rank 4 (I think that’s what it was called?) although that appears to be different than “regular” Rank 4? So I don’t really know what that means or why I should care yet. It’s awesome that we get XP for the PvP RvR matches though.
On the downside, my melee PvP Suck Factor was in high gear. It’s one thing positioning my character to play whack-a-mole on AI mobs that stand still and gracefully accept their beatings while my fingers are up on the number keys to use my hotbar abilities. In PvP everyone’s running around bunny hopping like it’s an Unreal Tournament match and I have one hell of a time positioning and steering myself onto an enemy player while trying to press the ability keys. At this point I only have two abilities, so I’m limited to spamming 2,1,1,1,1,2,1,1,1,1 but once my hotbar goes past 4 I’m going to be in some real trouble. I suppose that’s why I have an easier time with ranged dps or healers in PvP because I can stop and stand still, evaluate the situation and press the abilities in a more calm manner. As it went, I probably woke my downstairs neighbors from screaming and yelling obscenities at 2am. I won’t be the least bit surprised if a Catholic priest arrives today to perform an exorcism.
I made a comment in the previous WAR article about tanks needing healers. Yeah. That would have been nice too. I didn’t receive a single heal in either match. Did anyone else? Did we even have any healers? I have no idea because the tooltips won’t even tell me which players on my own side are healers! I don’t mind that I don’t know what the enemy side is. They have red names, I go kill them. But it would be nice to fucking know which fucking characters on my own fucking side belong to which fucking class! 
Communication would have been nice as well, but no one said a single word in either match. On the one hand, PvP RvR is a little more chaotic and it’s difficult to type in all the action but at least someone could press the push-to-talk switch and… oh wait, there’s no integrated VOIP either. Well, this is brilliant. After all the sci-fi movies I’ve seen, I was really expecting some goddamn lightning effects when I travel back in time.
After the second match I was aggravated enough to just wander around a bit for some PvE before bed. I won’t discount that I may have been just tired and grouchy but if I had to sum up Nordenwatch in a single word, right now that word would be: And?
I’ll keep at it, after all I have this month free to experience more and perhaps be in a better mood while I’m experiencing it. But so far the initial RvR is just PvP and nothing more. And it’s the same PvP as any other first-gen fantasy Diku-MMO.
A couple more glaring glitches or lack of polish came through last night as well:
- When zoning or respawning, buff icons on the hotbar continue to flash as if they’re active. They’re not. The graphical effect as well as the icon in the buff panel are gone, giving a clue to the true nature, but the hotbar icon thinks it’s still active.
- The “collecting” animation doesn’t stick while collecting objects for PvE quests. My character kneels to collect, then about 50% through the (entirely too lengthy) progress bar suddenly stands then kneels again.
Edit: I just remembered one more huge lack of polish moment. In the first Nordenwatch match, one of the players was a CoW so afterwards, I tried /who casualties to see how many CoW’s were on. Rather than showing the /who results in a UI frame like most games that try to present information in a user-friendly and easily readable manner would do, the results are spammed into the little chat window. Now, I’m a former IRC guy myself, and I often wish a few certain aspects of MMOGs were more IRC-like in nature, but this is not one of them. Spamming text results into a small window is perfectly fine when I’m SSH-ing to a web server or doing local work in a linux terminal but in a modern video game that is completely unacceptable.
on 
Entries (RSS)
The healers for Chaos are Zealots. The guys with knives in one hand and skulls in the other. Healers for Greenskins are goblins that carry a staff. Healers for Dark Elves are the ones carrying two big long swords and are actually wearing clothes.
No, it sounds like you were in some of the scenarios I was in. Everyone gets into a “I’m going to make a difference” mode and try to win it on their own. Healers end up DPSing, no one assists, it’s a mess. It’s sort of like PUG instances in WoW. And they’re always on your team… did it seem like Order was more organized? Probably guildies getting together and rolling scenarios while talking in Vent or TS.
Use /scenario to talk to people on your side. Very few people actually use it.
Here’s a look at RVR in the open, non-instanced areas. I think this video shows the tank wall blocking enemies into the keep while we work on the door/oil cauldron. We had two warbands formed up, though I’m not sure if the second one was completely full.
http://www.gamevee.com/viewVideo/Warhammer_Online/PC/Warhammer_Online_Tier_2_keep_seiges/928556
There is the odd swear word there. You’ll actually see my Witch Elf several times, at about 1:19 I swing by and finish off a Witch Hunter who was harassing the Shaman taking the video (Brent from Wall of Text).
Scenarios, without group or guild members, are a gamble. Sometimes you’ll get good ones, other times you’ll be in groups like you say… no one healing, people everywhere, no one talking and lots of dying.
Scott, I agree with almost everything you said, I’m just saddened that your missing the fun factor. Try the dwarves versus greenies scenario and try some open world rvr(pvp with a fancy name) and you might see something neat but don’t try open world rvr alone, you need to be in a group. In fact, WAR sucks alone… but grouped its great fun. What that will do to its longevity I don’t know for sure. At least alone you can do some small quests and some PQ’s (not all) and Scenarios. Also.. play an ironbreaker and you’ll see why tanks are good.
Forget it, he’s made up his mind… nothing is going to change it now. And he’s running a different version of War from the rest of us, because for instance he can’t toggle off the UI (says he has to hold down a key?) and enemies can move through him, which won’t work with my client.
To clarify, though…
Every win in an RVR scenario pushes control of the zone into your side’s favor. When your side gets control, everyone in the zone gets a buff and some renown points. Renown rank is used to buy renown gear.
Yes, the game scales up your hit points and stuff for RvR, but you still have the Character Skills of a level 4. So you’re not going to be very effective in an RvR scenario.
Yeah, let’s burn Scott at the stake because he’s not enjoying a game we enjoy!
I’m not one to deny issues or say it’s super polished, if you read my bit in the previous post you’ll see I mostly agree with you and cite a number of other issues that are annoying or painful.
Hehe. /who Casualties can be a pretty long list depending on what time you’re on at. :$
Anyway, I’m sorry it’s not turning out to be your cup of tea. I was looking forward to cracking skulls with you.
If you’re on tomorrow night or later in weekend, look up Sindaena, Smaken, Kneecappa, Daerathuul or Daergoth (not all of them are in CoW).
I reset the key bind for the UI toggle and it’s “working as intended” now. I even switched it back to the default Shift+Z (which I don’t care for) and it’s working. Maybe it was just a fluke last night?
I’ve played Nordenwatch a few times today and perhaps the enemy isn’t going *through* me like I thought may have been happening last night, but I am certainly getting blocked by my own team fairly often, and I’m under the impression that should not be happening at all?
I’ll keep at it and try to learn more about what’s happening and what I’m doing. I can’t really say I’m necessarily enjoying WAR so far, though, which may be the death knell for my time here, Casualties or no Casualties.
No, your own side is supposed to block you as well. Otherwise you could all stand on top of each other and bring overwhelming force to bear on a single enemy tank in a line that’s blocking access to some goal.
And I wasn’t burning him at the stake, just saying… first impressions mean a lot. If the guy doesn’t like the game, he doesn’t like it, and I doubt he’ll change his opinion.
It seemed like he went into it expecting not to like it, considering he made a huge list of technical or user interface cons after reaching level 2, which takes about 5 minutes to get to. So he never really experienced the gameplay before he started listing things he didn’t like.
Another thing about missing tanks is their ability to use PvP taunt. Basically reduces the damage a target deals out unless they fight you. Everything tends to take longer to kill in PvP when tanks are around, especially if they are using shields.
Other classes get similar abilities that work like reverse taunt. My warrior priest has one that I can cast on a target and reduces the damage they can deal to me by 50% as long as I don’t hit them. Its great for surving in a fight against multiple dps classes.
@Relmstein: I like the sound of how the PvP taunt works, provided there’s some healers backing me up. Any idea at what point I start getting my first taunting ability?
@TrollSlayer: Ah, I thought I’d read that the collision detection was only supposed to work against enemy characters. If it’s working as intended, I’ll go with the flow then.
I was doing a PQ awhile ago and a broadcast of “Nordlanc and Norsca have been captured by Order” came up. So that means the Order characters all got a buff? I’m not even sure where those locations are and how — or if — I can contribute to keeping them under Destruction control but if there’s a big-picture point to all this, that sounds better to me than what I’m doing in this introductory content.
Oh, and since I get buffed to Battle Rank 8 in a Scenario, continuing that thought shall I presume that once my rank is higher than 8 I will be debuffed back to 8 for RvR?
@Smaken: It wasn’t the size of the /who list, it’s the fact it was sent to the chat window at all that I take issue with. It’s great that CoW has grown to the size it has, but I’m sorry, this type of poor information presentation just doesn’t cut it. Especially when there are other aspects of WAR that present information even better (or at least easier to get to) than other games do.
I haven’t played a game yet that popped up the /who list in a separate window. I’ve played one that had the search in a completely separate window (AoC) but I think that was it. I think VG and other games added those things in.
@TrollSlayer: I agree, he did seem to go at it without having a desire to like it. Sorry about the “burn him at the stake” thing… though I do know a good BBQ sauce…
I believe some of those messages you see relate to the Open RVR areas. In each one there are two or three objectives. I suspect Order took them all which is why you were getting that message.
Oh… here’s a blog post for you; a list of stuff MMOs should have as a minimum framework to their game. In game systems as opposed to content, classes and how it all plays.
Maybe certain other development companies will take a look at it and say, “Yeah, we should put this stuff in…”
I don’t know that I’d say I went in wanting to dislike it. WAR is the first and only opportunity so far to get all my favorite bloggers and commenters together, that was something to look forward to. The game itself… I guess I went in with low expectations (first-gen Diku, PvP focus, etc.) and am feeling like it’s delivering even lower.
I’m normally an explorer type, and maybe it’s because the world has a profound lack of detail (so far) but I haven’t really cared one way or the other when I find a new zone. So far zones are very WoW-like in that as soon as you step in, you’ve seen it all. No surprises, no neat little nooks and crannies to find.
I’m just doubting the replayability of what seems to be a normal first-gen PvP game with some mediocre PvE thrown in as an afterthought.