The more jaded section of MMO veterans have an unspoken “3 month” rule for any new MMO, in that they wait until the early bugs are squashed before they buy and start playing. The first few months of any new MMO are always filled with patches, hot fixes, tweaks, and changes. Depending on how bad the MMO was at launch, the game 3 months later might be completely different, and entire classes might have been revamped. If you liked the original, and hate the revamp, that’s going to burn you hard.
But while in most MMO games being 3 months behind is fine, I wonder how that will play out in Warhammer Online. In 3 months tier 4 will be alive and active, and the intended ‘end game’ will be in full swing. The earlier tiers, while I’m guessing they will still be populated, assuming WAR continues on it’s early success and new players continue to sign up, will be viewed as the build up to the end game, rather than the actual focus like they are now. Currently, with the majority of the population still in tiers 1 and 2, the war in Warhammer is still focused on those earlier areas.
Skipping an MMO launch you naturally miss all of the ‘oh that’s new’ moments that happen in the first month or so, when everyone is new and still trying to get a feel for the game. Unique to WAR however is the buildup to tier 4, the feeling that you know at some point, city sieges will occur somewhat frequently and the focus of the game will dramatically shift from random Keep raids and scenarios to a focused, realm wide battle. For those leveling right now, going through the buildup, it’s similar to waiting for an MMO release. The closer you are the higher the excitement level, until that excitement turns to release and you finally ‘get in’.
For me, the minor bugs in Warhammer are nothing compared to the buildup, the feeling that at some point, on my server and all others, the real war in Warhammer will truly begin, and I can’t wait to be a peon on the front line, ready to die (often) for a chance to burn down Aldorf.
Hardcore Casual 
Can’t agree more. While the “end-game” of WAR is something to truly look forward to, I’m glad I didn’t wait to buy into the game. These first few weeks have been nothing short of memorable, with CoW and all the non-stop fighting.
I’m re-rolling though, perhaps an Ironbreaker, because I really can’t stand looking at my High Elf and his stupid blindfold anymore.
Unspoken? Ha! I don’t shut up about it! :D
I quite agree though, it is an individual choice and one does pay for a smoother game by forfeiting the early ‘Pioneer’ days of an MMO. I’d be a bit worried about any MMO if the newbie game was obsolete within three months, by design, though. Hopefully that’s not the case in WAR.
Interesting question; are pragmatic MMOs designed on the assumption that most people will be mostly in the endgame, or do they aim to have all the levels populated all the way through it’s life? Perhaps it means that these games aren’t envisaged to live forever.
Besides, AoC (most recently, but there have been many others before it) did somewhat tar *all* New MMOs for me a bit. I like to think that if a game is any good, it’ll be still there when I’m ready for it.
Must admit though, I do get increasingly irritable about the whole ‘It’s an MMO launch, they’re *always* that bad’ attitude that we all seem to be okay with these days. I’m glad I’m in the minority, patience-wise though. Give it four or five more consecutive MMO launches as polished as WAR’s and maybe I’ll start to relent a bit ;)
I cannot imagine trying to level in Warhammer mostly through PvE. It is why I have not been playing Destruction (hour+ scenario queues). Without lower-tier RvR, alting is just grinding, and there are games with much better and/or faster PvE content before the “real game.”
Yea I think that’s one of the really interesting things about WAR, people are totally divided on the PvE (specifically the questing). Some people, myself included, really enjoy it. Others hate it.
To me the questing is no different than WoW/LoTRO, and I mean that as a compliment. It’s a nice break from RvR, and is easily accessible content if you only have 30 minutes or an hour. But then, I don’t sit down to ‘grind out’ my character to max or some preset level range before I start to enjoy WAR. I think at rank 1 it’s fun, and at each rank it changes, but never stops being fun.
If I played WAR like WoW or other MMOs, where I felt the need to ‘grind out’ ranks 1-40, I would hate it as well, but the difference for me is that WAR is fun on all levels, and while I’m sure T4 will up the ante, do don’t feel like I’m missing out when I stop to enjoy T1 and T2.
everyone keeps saying that open world RvR will break out once everyone hits lvl 40 and teir 4. I don’t believe it for a minute. It is going to remain scenarios 24×7 with the occassional city raid. Scenarios will be 5x faster to level to 80 renown. This game would be great if they just removed scenarios completely. In the meantime, feel free to keep thinking that open world RvR is going to come……. it aint
Kinda what brindle said. I see Warhammer as a game of broken mechanics regarding both endgame and pre-endgame. People are lazy and do the activity which yields the msot achievement with minimal requirements, thus making destruction sitting on all captured forts in tier4, waiting in queues for Order players to come online. The underdog side won’t bother with open world anyways, they have scenarios to grind! War will get so boring after only 3 months. It will being back the money, I figure, many people will stay to play for they know not better, but quite a lot of players will be back to wow, eq2, eve, whatever they were playing before.
I haft to disagree. The end game is now and without some tier one, two and three victories all the t4 effort almost pointless.
I think LOTRO is a better example of missing the boat. I started playing a year after a lunch and 80% of the guild was at level 45-50 and in all the higher books.
WAR really allow us to avoid the rush to 40 and enjoy the game now. Best part… rolling an alt is not abandoning end game as all effort goes towards the realm. Makes alt’ites easy to have.
Good question Van Hemlock, I much prefer leveling in a world where people are playing and competing for things instead of a dead zone with life only at the cap, myself. Good points also Syncaine. As far as long term doom and gloom, I’m not so sure, because the best rewards are from Open World rvr by design. So sitting in scenarios wont be as good as you might think eventually. I do worry about realm balance and one side always having better loot though. :P I don’t know if things will be best at the beginning or if it will have a Renaissance period like wow did before its decline pre-bc. We’ll have to see. I think it depends on how popular the game is.
While Van Hemlock’s POV is entirely valid in the grand majority of cases, I had to sign up for WAR at launch. I’ve never played an MMO at launch before and all the reports from the beta indicated that the bugs weren’t crippling the game. I’m very glad I did as I’m having a lot more fun at the low levels here than I’ve faced in starting out in a mature game. Maybe that’s just because WAR is so good, but I do think riding the leveling wave plays a big role the fun I’m having.
Playing at launch is a bad idea. Bad. Too many bugs, too many things broken, too many ‘fixes’ that break stuff you liked, then the next fix swings back the other way, and breaks more stuff you like.
Just stay away from an MMO at launch, you’ll be happier for it.
That’s my opinion after the various MMOs up to Age of Conan. I foolishly broke down and bought AoC and tried to play at launch. Gave up after 2 weeks. Not going back.
Fortunately, I was just as stupid and got into WAR at launch. Now the rule is stay away from other MMOs at launch, and just play WAR instead.
I think the end game at T4 is going to see two camps of players, heavily split and with little overlap. The ‘just go for the renown points and then try to figure out what to do at L40/RR80…’ scenarios campers. And the ‘having fun storming the castle!’ crowd camping out in the RvR zones. Because of that, T4 will probably work. Pity the poor alt trying to level up 2 or 3 months after launch, though.
I won’t be in either camp, I’ll be the guy still trying to level up 6 different careers to T3… damn altitis, damn enjoyable low levels.