Warhammer Online: Levels 1-20

30 Sep 2008 at 10:45:51 by Jerry Friestad
Systems used to review this title: (PC)

The day has finally come.  The pen and paper model making tabletop strategy game has finally been delivered to me in a way that doesn't cost five hundred dollars and 200 hours just to construct a proper army which won't leave me embarrassed before the presence of true fans.  Under the shadow of the success in World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online has been in development, which may have bred contempt but overall made for a better game.

Warhammer is one of the first MMOs to actually borrow that which works from WoW and add them to its game, unlike the failures that have come before it. Sure Lord of the Rings and Age of Conan may have done that but be honest, did you renew your subscription after the first month?

The game immediately starts you out in each generic starting zone with 3 "learn to kill things that can't fight back" quests and a few spells to fight. Most classes will start with a melee and ranged attack as their primary DPS and a weaker variant of the other to better suit different situations. Example: If you pick a primarily melee class you will get a weak ranged attack to pull monsters and if you pick a primarily ranged class you will get a weak melee attack to fight when monsters reach you. There is no variation between the classes for the first 3 levels until you buy new spells, then the real differences between classes will show.  Between levels 11-20 when you start fighting in the tier 2 scenarios expect to see differences. One thing I liked about the initial levels in Warhammer is you can jump into a RvR battleground (Scenario) immediately and it adjusts you to a higher rank to compete with the other players, however you will still be at a gear disadvantage. The PvP in the game is renamed RvR for some reason (probably because WoW calls it PvP and Warhammer is the spiteful younger brother that won't get a bike because it's the same one its brother has). The Battlegrounds you queue up for are also known as Scenarios in this game, aside from some other weird things I'll detail later; most of the MMO nomenclature translates over to here pretty well.

I played around with every class to level 3 just to get a feel for what I wanted which took me a good 10 hours. Eventually I went with the Chaos Chosen for two reasons, my character is a bad ass at all times and I wanted to play Destruction side to avoid the children rolling Witch Hunters and High Elf Shadow Hunters with variations on the name Legolas. So far I've seen Legolaas, Laygolas, Leygolas, Leigolass, Leighgolass, Legowlas, Legölas, Legoolass, and that was just in one scenario. The leveling in the game moves much slower than WoW, to put it into perspective it has taken me close to the same amount of time getting to Rank 20 than it took to get to level 40 in WoW before the experience boost patch went in. The good thing however is that everything you do in Warhammer including RvR grants you experience so you'll never feel like you're delaying the leveling process by jumping into the Player vs Player content. Aside from your players rank there's Renown Rank which you level by doing RvR content, the maximum Renown Rank caps out at 80 and if you play the game right it should level well with your standard rank so look for a long grind from 40-80 renown when you hit the max level. Leveling your standard rank unlocks talents and the ability to spec in 3 different trees for class similar to WoW, however renown rank unlocks even more stat boosts and special talents making you able to differentiate your character even further from other players. The talents you pick are pretty clear cut on what bonuses they give you so it's pretty obvious which renown points you should take when you spec a certain way.

All ...

Comment