The problem with Warhammer : Age of Reckoning’s RVR

If you have been playing the game and reading the various forums that deal with WAR, you will have noticed that some are not completely satisfied with how the game’s RvR component has turned out. Some frequently mentioned items that people feel contribute to this are the preponderance of scenarios and scenario grinding to the detriment of overland RvR, class/side/balance issues, mediocre rewards for keep and objective taking/ defending and bugs/exploits.

What I find problematic with WAR’s RvR boils down to one simple thing : I don’t really feel like there’s a war going on in the game. For me there is no clearly defined ”us and them” feeling attached to the whole Order vs Destruction conflict. Strangely enough, when I fight other players in scenarios and RVR, I don’t really see them as ”the enemy” but rather as fellow gamers grinding their way up the renown ranks, almost in a cooperative mentality. You allow me to get to some kills on you and rank up, I do the same for you and your mates. Everybody wins. Even if the whole war theme is recurrent and much in evidence in the PvE quests, the lore and even in the landscape, I find that from a game mechanic perspective, it still seems absent.

In my mind, what causes this phenomenon is the lack of a clearly defined and identifiable”front line” in the game. Taking Lotro Monsterplay as an example, when I log in with my creep, by looking at the map, I can rapidly see where the main areas of contention are and measure the progress either side made since I last logged in. I have little problem seeing the ebb and flow of combat throughout the Ettenmoors by looking at what keeps have been taken. By monitoring chat I can understand what is going on and get the feeling that there is a dynamic struggle between ”us” and ”them”. I get the feeling that there is some strategy involved and a concerted plan by either side to attain a given objective. In short, Lotro Monsterplay gives me the impression that there is a ”Big Picture” in the strategic sense of the word, which is manifested by the easily measured loss or gain of territory.

I don’t get that in WAR. In Age of Reckoning, combat is ”all around you”, omnipresent, but seemingly unfocused. I don’t really know, or in the long run care, that the other side is ”pushing here” or ”massing there”. I’m just going on my merry way through the tiers with no real stake in maintaining the territorial integrity of my side. The enemy just took a keep ? So what, good for them. I won’t be here long so I don’t care. I am just not drawn in to a larger picture in WAR. Heck I can’t even see one.

Hopefully I will get to experience another side of WAR’s RVR when I reach tier 4, because I do realise that I can’t have seen everything the game has to offer in this area after having only just completed tier 2. Until then though, I am anxiously awaiting the upcoming free play weekend Turbine has set up for lapsed Lotro subscribers in order to jump back on my Black Arrow and take part in a much smaller scale, but more easily identifiable and understandable, war.

Star Wars : The Old Republic and Star Wars Galaxies

So yesterday the one of the worst kept secrets in MMO land was finally revealed : Bioware’s next big foray into the Star Wars universe will be a massively multiplayer title. No big surprise here, the announcement in many ways being a mere formality following the considerable speculation and leaks surrounding the project in the past few months. Bioware’s returning to the Old Republic setting does make perfect business sense in light of the popularity of the Knight’s of the Old Republic franchise. Releasing an MMO in this segment of the Star Wars timeline is a pretty safe bet and it’s success, to some degree or other, seems  guaranteed.

While the launching of an MMO set in the Old Republic era of Star Wars is for me an exciting prospect, I can’t help also feeling a twinge of sadness for the eventual fate of Star Wars Galaxies, which may with time become simply known as ”That other Star Wars MMO”. Yes, I know it is already a rather old title and has suffered some serious player base attrition with the whole NGE episode, which incidentally is around the time I started playing SWG, yet I also know that it has recently been enjoying a modest resurgence in popularity, with many returning players seeming rather pleased with the direction in which the game is going.

With the oncoming appearance of a competitor on the Star Wars MMO scene, I am worried for the title and it’s viability, and many questions come to mind concerning it’s future. How will the fact that is no longer the only Star Wars themed title in the MMO market affect it ? Will it be able to develop distinctly enough from the Bioware game to retain it’s originality and give it’s current subscribers reasons to stay and maintain their accounts ? Will SOE keep supporting it to a decent enough level ?

I hope the answer to all of these questions is yes, but I have the feeling that this is far from certain. A while ago I remember listening to a Yivvits and Mr Bubbles SWG podcast where the hosts seemed to be saying they would leave Galaxies in a heartbeat if the Bioware game lived up to it’s promise. And this is from some pretty dedicated SWG players, which I would say is reasonable cause for concern.

Only time will tell I guess.

Rest XP, how important is it?

Do you pay attention to the part of your XP bar that mentions if you are rested, or have vitality if you play EQ2, in order to maximize your levelling efficiency? Do you find that the bonus that being rested confers makes you change your playing habits?

As far as I am concerned the answer is yes to both these questions. Having just started to play Warhammer Age of Reckoning, I recently noticed that my newly-minted Magus had exhausted his rest bonus and was only getting normal XP. This kind of thing doesn’t happen much to me because these days I normally play in small spurts, which makes it hard to deplete rest, and also often take long vacations from a given game, which enables me to build up a rather large amount of rest until I come back. So I seldom run out of the stuff.

But this time it’s different, mainly because I have been playing marathon sessions of WAR with a fresh character, which burns up rest very fast indeed ! In this case I found that not having the rest bonus as I was playing really bothered me, making me feel as if I was not getting all that could get out of my play sessions. Even if I am not a power gamer or power leveller by any stretch of the imagination, I was still very bothered by the fact that if I kept going with my ”unrested” Magus I would not be playing in ”optimal” conditions, whatever that means.

So after much soul-searching I decided to park him for a bit and roll up an alt in order to let him ”rest up” for a time. I normally never do this, although I know many who people do this regularly, and I admit that I am a bit surprised. I thought I was above such petty game mechanic manipulations aimed at slowing down character progression in MMOs, but obviously I am not.

Ah the things we learn about ourselves through gaming!

Back to some old friends : Vanguard and Lotro Monsterplay.

In the past few weeks I have been taking advantage of two free game time offers ( is it me or are they getting more frequent these days? ), 30 days of Vanguard, starting September 18th,  and the Lotro double XP weekend, running October 2-6, and boy am I glad I took advantage of these opportunities !

Regarding Vanguard, I have to admit that my enthusiasm for this tile has always been at best lukewarm, I have tried before to really get into it, but to no avail. That is until this free month came along. This time, I think I finally ”got” why some people are so into this game and I believe I know why my attitude towards Vanguard has changed. The first reason is that believe that I have been brainwashed by countless hours of listening to the Voyages of Vanguard podcast, which has surrepticiously implanted in my brain the idea that this game is actually quite fun. You can’t be a regular listener to the show without at some point starting to buy into the host’s and other contributor’s enthousiasm for Telon. The second reason is that instead of taking up my Orc Dreadknight where I left off and slogging on with him, I decided to re-roll a Vulmane Druid and give Vanguard a fresh start by going through the new Isle of Dawn starter zone. This somewhat restored a certain ‘’shiny newness” to the game and rekindled in me a sense of discovery that is quite enjoyable. Lastly, the most important reason why I am liking Vanguard more and more is it’s old-school feel and it’s nostalgia inducing ”vibe”. I can’t explain it rationally but Vanguard really does bring me back to simpler MMO gaming times and I am surprised to see that this strikes a chord in me. I guess today’s more modern, more polished and more ”in” MMOs lack some of the stripped down straightforwardness that a title like Vanguard brings to the table. In essence, to me Vanguard is ”old”, but in a good way. When I log into the game I no longer bring with me the kinds of expactations I would bring to AoC or some other recent titles. Now I rather go in considering that I am in a time machine to the past which enables me to enjoy a more ”innocent” and ”naive” flavour of MMO gaming.

My time back in Lotro was short and very sweet. I only played my Black Arrow in the Ettenmoors, leaving my Elf Champion in storage till Mines of Moria comes out. It was nice to see some old faces, seems like a lot of of ex-Nimrodel creeps headed the call back. One thing that really made me happy was to see that I am no longer so emotionally invested in the PvMP aspect of the game, what I mean is that I am a lot more casual about the whole thing, enjoying it for what it is, warts and all. The unbalanced nature of the Moors no longer stirs in me any inordinate passions or inflames in me any rightous anger at the state of things. Which is a good thing because really, there are a lot more important things to get worked up about in life. Sadly I noticed that this was not the case for everyone, some creep players still venting copious amounts of bile towards the freep side and all their various manifestations of cheesyness.  As for me, I found my time geting zerged, farmed and cc-stun-mezzed rather enjoyable when all is said and done, and have now come to better appreciate Monsterplay for the zany creature that it really is.

Here’s a cheer then for happy reunions!