WAR is coming!

[MortiS-the-Lost]

A new trailer has just been relased for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning and it all looks very shiny! But is just a cinematic and doesn't feature any actual game-play footage, so there's nothing to really judge the actual game by here. I have been following the development of the game for the last 2 years or so though and for the moment I will say this: Warhammer Age of Reckoning (or WAR if all those big words are just too much for you) dose look like a great game and is definitely going to be better than World of Warcraft (then again cleaning a urinal using only your lips and tongue is better than WoW). Even from that I haven't really found out much about the game but I have downloaded some nice concept art and watching Paul Barnett explain the Warhammer background is always fun. Anyway back to the new cinematic which unfortunately dose not feature Paul Barnett talking about Chaos and custard.

I'm not sure who voiced the intro but it's sounds like Zoë Wanamaker trying to do an impression of Cate Blanchett's One Ring speech from the beginning of 'Fellowship'. The camera pans past several bits of promotional artwork which the men of the empire have gone to all the trouble of getting printed on their banners at the T-shirt Works in Middenheim while 'Zoë-Cate Wanamaker-Blanchett' talks about a great alliance of Elves, Men and Dwarfs. Then just as your wondering if you might be watching the LotR Online trailer by mistake the camera zooms through a conveniently blown hole in the wall and over  an army of Orcs and Chaos Warriors. (during this bit the narrator even uses the words “... forged in the fire of ...”) finally the camera reaches a Goblin on the war-torn hill site. This is a Squig Herder - one of the playable characters in the game.


  ^ “I you choose you, Gobbla!”

It's at this point I have to quickly check to see if some one has spiked my cup of tea with LSD. Let me explain - The Goblin throws a smoke bomb at the ground in front of him and Summons a Squig Pok-e-mon style. then as I reel in shock from that, the Goblin proceeds to beat the Squig with what I assume to be the fabled 'ugly stick' and the Squig grows to 3 times it's initial size. The giant Squig then swallows the goblin and the goblin rides across the battle field inside the Squig's mouth as if it where a suit of power armour. And every fan of Warhammer Goblins falls into a catatonic state. WTF? What happened to herding Squigs into battle with pitch forks? Or riding them by clinging on to horns? I don't know maybe this is just what a Night Goblin thinks is happening while he's tripping out on Madcap-Mushrooms.


 ^ NO Mythic! Bad Mythic!

Fortunately a passing Bright Wizard also disapproves of this blatant disregard for the background material and sets the abomination on fire. The Bright Wizard flames a bunch of orcs and then gets stabbed my a Mutated Marauder who in turn is shot by an Blond Elf Chick. Annoyed, the Marauder follows the Blondie Elf into a back street, where they have a bit a of sword fight and then the Blondie Elf just shoots him anyway.
Then a much hotter looking Dark Elf turns up casting Chillwind at everyone and freezes the High Elf's feet to the ground.


 ^ Ooh! yea! she's a baaad Elf

But before Sexy Elf can kill Legolas's younger sister the Horn of Gondor sounds in the background signaling lunch break or something. The Bright Wizard (who I thought was dead) rather kindly thaws out the Blondie Elf's legs and all the characters gather round a large gateway as a Chaos Chosen who looks like Sauron with horns walks out followed by a Greater Demon of Tzeentch that has a bit of trouble fitting through the arch. The End. Please note there are Dwarfs in this trailer but if you blink you might miss them.


 ^ Blink and you'll miss them

http://mythicmktg.fileburst.com/war/us/home/flash/WAR_cinematic_08.html

Also as a bonus check out this preview trailer for the original Warhammer Online game which GW pulled the plug on a few years back.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=EkQvPQJ1_Dk

[GingeKinger]

Even with everything you have said about this game... I am still enjoying it.
You should give it a go. The RvR is amazing!

[BobbieTheDamned]

hmm that is rather completely ignoring the background isn't it?

I mean hell Elves helping humans and dwarves not beating the crap out of an elf on sight is pretty much breaking the background but mythic have tried to make warhammer into 'goodies' and 'baddies' (which it isn't in my opinion). The Empire army consisiting of pretty much all characters and special units is a laugh too.

Still it looks pretty good.

I'll just wait for them to start giving out 14 day free trials like virtually every other MMO does.


Oh wait yeah GW is behind it. Free doesn't enter their vocabulary anymore does it? just like the word 'sale'.

[GingeKinger]

But... if they had split up all the armys so there was, rather than good and bad, a faction for each race. the PvP/RvR would be very very slow and more people would complain.

Its ment to be a PvP baes MMO so it needs to have alot of option and opening and varied teams.
The games still new and quite buggy so waiting would be best.

Any idea what class you will want to play if you do join?

[MortiS-the-Lost]

Actually I don't dislike WAR as a computer game and as far as MMORPGs go it compares more than favorably to all other MMORPGs I've experienced and certainly out performs the other one with the letters w-a-r in it's title in all aspects. Hmm thats a lot of acronyms for one sentence, hey dose any else remember when MMORPGs used to be called MUDs? I guess MUD just didn't sound cool enough in a time when games have acronyms like 'WoW'. Maybe thats why Combat: Ultimate Ninja Training never came out....
Any way before I get too carried away I'll go back to the point that WAR is great game, but it dose this by not falling into the trap most MMORPGs fall into of trying to be WoW and didn't necessarily need GW's IP license to do that. For instance Mythic could have made 'Dark Age of Camelot: Reloaded' (or what ever) and still incorporated all the great RvR and game play elements that make WAR what it is.
What I (and I'm sure many other players of what I'm half expecting GW to re-name “Warhammer Offline: age of books and dice” in the near future) find disappointing about WAR is that designed to be a mainstream MMORPG and not the global computerized version of WFRP it promised to be. And also that isn't as accurate to the Warhammer background as it made out it was going to be (hence my dislike for the what they did with the Squig Herder character type)

[MortiS-the-Lost]

Yea having all the characters in the game as elite and special troop types isn't very Warhammer-y.
It ruins the whole feel of the world, it's kinda like adding an annoying CG frog thing with floppy ears that talks like a black child on speed to Star Wars universe or making a 4th Indiana Jones with aliens in it ... no wait that really happened didn't it? .... argh!

There is a free trial as EA are marketing and distributing it rather than letting GW promote the game by   releasing a limited edition miniature which is very similar to an existing one but with a different helmet and costs twice as much  

[GingeKinger]

Isnt a MUD a smaller version? Like Diablo2?

MMO Is massively multiplayer while A MUD is just a Multiplayer/Multiuser dungeon Crawler.

But MUD's were the route of all evil today that is the MMO. Most MMO's At the moment are trying to copy WoW. Its the most succesful one out the at the moment so they need to try and find what that incredient is.
Alot of people who i know play WoW and wont change becuase they know people that play WoW. If there guild left WoW they would leave WoW and play the new game that the guild wants to play.
My mate is trying to convince his Guild to leave and Play WAR XD fingers crossed to that.