Warhammer Online: My Biggest Complaints

With a title like that I need to preface this post right away: I am thoroughly enjoying Warhammer Online.  I’ve been looking forward to it since it was first announced, and I’ve been playing it almost every spare moment I’ve had since launch.  That being said there is quite a few issues with the game that need to be addressed, and as Mythic has said it is looking for user feedback I figure I’ll take a moment to post some of my biggest complaints with the current game.

Scenario Queue Times: While scenarios are more fun then I expected them to be, the queues can take far too long to pop, especially if you are playing early in the morning or really late at night.  And this is in an optimal setting where everyone is mostly in the same tiers and our server has a high population.  Once most people are 40 and there is fewer players in tiers 1-3 the queues will be painfully slow.  Solution: Implement cross-server queues and the total earned from the players on your realm is contributed to your server.

Scenario Repeatable Quests: For each tier, there are 2 repeatable quests for the scenarios.  One for completing them, and one for killing players inside of them.  Together they amount to about 3000xp, which is about 1/3 what you get for winning the average scenario, or about the full amount if you lose.  Because these quests are worth so much, if you are trying to level through pvp you don’t want to leave this mob.  This turns what should have been a boon of the scenarios, that you can do your own thing while queue’d and just hop in them when they pop, into a negative; in reality you can’t do that, or don’t want to, because if the scenarios are popping relatively quick its difficult to earn more than that 3k xp, so its safer to stay at the mob.  This turns the game into a real drag, as you just sit there staring at the screen waiting for the scenario to pop.  Solution: either get rid of these quests or make them auto-complete after the scenario so you can do your own thing.

Lack of Skirmish Open RVR: By far my favorite type of PVP is skirmish open rvr.  Running into another small group with your small group always amounts to exciting, fun fights.  But skirmish pvp is far too rare in WAR.  People are either doing scenarios, or they are hitting a keep with their guild.  I think the problem is there is nothing to do in the rvr lakes except take a keep or BO, which requires a good sized group; so the solo players and small groups that enter those areas, do a lap, see no one and leave.  Which leaves the rvr lakes empty, except when a guild decides to go for a keep, which then results in a zerg.  Solution: Provide more things to do in the rvr lakes for single players or small groups, throw in more quests, mobs to kill, put some public quests there!  Give players something to do so they aren’t forced to stand around doing nothing hoping someone shows up to fight.

Collision Detection is Garbage: Collision detection was a nice idea, but from everything I’ve seen it’s worthless in WAR.  Versus enemies your collision detection area seems quite small and it’s difficult to block anyone, but due to server latency and coding, which makes players appear to be in a location they are not, you try to block a witch hunter from running past you as your black orc and it shows you block them on your screen, only to have the client refresh a second later and see you never blocked them at all, they went right by you and are on your healer.  Conversely, attempting to run through your allies with the ball in Morkain’s is an excersise in frustration as everyone seems to block you far too easily.  Solution: larger collision area with more correct positioning for enemies, and smaller collision detection for allies.

Client Bugs:  I know this will be fixed, but honestly the client bugs are horribly annoying and the issue needs to have as much attention as possible.  I’ve died too many times as my shaman hammering F9 for my rank 1 morale heal, only to have it completely bug out and refuse to fire.  Plans reset as my black orc.  Abilities fail for no apparent reason.  Animations go out of sync.  Framerate is horrible even on fast machines.  There appears to be a memory leak..  the client is just one massive bugfest at the moment and needs some serious work.  Solution: make Gork fix it!

I am missing my immersion: I was discussing this with Snafzg, and he suggests this may be by design, but WAR makes me far too aware I am playing a game.  That may sound like a good thing, but for an MMORPG I would say it’s not.  The whole purpose of an MMORPG is to make an online virtual world, where you play a character and can get immersed in it.  With WAR, I really lack the sense I’m playing a character in a virtual world.  With WoW, there was always the sense I was in a virtual world from the moment you logged in, because it was one seamless world and you were always aware of where your character was in it.  In WAR, I am literally porting all over every few moments, whether to another tier’s warcamp, or to IC, or into some scenario, my character’s feet doesn’t stay on the ground in one area for more then a few moments before he’s wisked off somewhere else.  WAR wanted to eliminate most “forced downtime”, but perhaps something else gets lost with it.  A great feeling the first time in WoW was walking up the road from your starting area and seeing Orgrimmar rise in the distance, or making the trek from Thunder Bluff to there; you got a great sense of adventure and exploration in that game.  Perhaps some downtime is a necessary evil.  In Warhammer, I don’t even know how to walk to IC, or most other places, I just port there and the excitement is lost.  I’m not in a virtual world, I’m in a series of connected portals, and I’m far too aware of that fact.  Solution: I don’t see one in the near future, let’s hope the PVP and other features makes up for it.

I miss a third realm: A huge uprising of people said it was a mistake when Mythic announced there would only be two sides, and only one week into release I really think they were right.  I already really miss having a third realm to add excitement to the game.  With two sides, it’s just so absolute.  Your team is either winning or losing, there is no third realm to be the monkey wrench and show up and ruin your plans.  My two favorite games were MUME and DaoC, and both had 3 sides.  WAR only has 2, and even in the lower tiers I feel the lack of excitement a third side could bring weighing down on my enjoyment of the game.  At endgame, it seems like it will be much worse.  Population imbalances are such an important issue, and with three realms it is so much easier, since the two lower pops can always gang up on the higher pop.  A three way fight will always be more interesting then a two way one.  Solution: we know you won’t, but it would be awesome if an expansion introduced a third realm, purposefully set at a slight disadvantage, for hardcore players to have a challenge and can add back the three-way excitement to the game *hint skaven!*

Those would be my main issues.  Again as I said, I am loving the game.  I just hope to see it get even better, and voicing the main detrements to my enjoyment hopefully helps make that happen =)

About this entry

You’re currently reading “Warhammer Online: My Biggest Complaints,” an entry on Nazgum’s Blog

Published:
Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 at 11:39 am
Author:
Nazgum
Category:
Uncategorized
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