Warhammer Online was created with the intent of having massive battles between Order and Destruction. They've accomplished that goal as far as I'm concerned given that I've seen 4-5 warbands (a warband consists of 24 people) fight 4-5 warbands several times, not counting fortress battles. There are much larger battles than that, ones exceeding 200v200 at times and I'm sure each server could tell you stories about large battles they've had. However all along there have been players who have spoken out against "zerging" and have promoted small group play (usually 10 or less people vs 10 or less etc). Now when I talk about zerging I use the term loosely. I consider a zerg to be a mass of players that run around together accomplishing things that can be done with many less. For example if there are 28 Destruction in a zone and Order responds and attacks them with 55 people then I consider that zerging. Is zerging bad? That depends.
WAR awards zerg behavior. Keeps, Battlefield Objectives, Fortresses and beyond all award zerg play. This is funny, because the ultimate goals of those particular things require PvE. WAR is supposedly a PvP game. I think it shines as a PvP game really, but only as long as I refrain from getting caught up in the renown farming PvE cycle. Given that WAR is based around zerg play, small groups will find they do in fact have a role to play. Say Destruction is attacking a keep. Take a 2-6 man force and find a good ambush spot between the Destro warcamp and the most likely approach to the keep. You'll find all sorts of small battles. Another thing you can do is to bait away portions of a zerg. Inevitably the zerg leader will do one of two things. They will either tell everyone to charge you (thus "zerging" you) or they will tell everyone to ignore you in which case at least 5-10% of the zerg will still likely come after you. Here's an example of how zerg minded people are in WAR. Several times I've been running in a small group and we'll come across a zerg waiting in a BO for it to cap (yay 500 Renown!!!). We'll try to bait them out to fight and usually a few will come out. We then usually kill those players (in plain sight of their allies) and run off before those sitting in the BO even consider moving. That doesn't always happen (sometimes they steam roll us), but it happens often enough to give me a sick feeling in my stomach.
So far I know that I sound opposed to zerging. That's because I am. However in a game that rewards that style of play I cannot find fault in those who like to run around in massive clumps. It's what the game is based around and they have every right to do so. That said, I have more respect for those who run in smaller groups to accomplish the same goals the zergs are working at. Do they care? It's likely they don't, but that's the point of having an opinion. Some will agree while others disagree. I can say for sure though that the most fun I have in WAR is when running with 4-6 people and wiping a group of say 8-20 people. For me there's a sense of accomplishment and good play when I'm on the outnumbered side and still win. If I am in a group that doubles the size of the group we're fighting then I almost feel useless. What enjoyment is there if you don't even really need to dismount? I guess it depends on why you play as well. I play to PvP and have fun. From what I've written you can tell what I consider fun when it comes to PvP in WAR.
What do you folks think? Is zerging good? Bad? Necessary? I've expressed my opinion, now express yours.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
What Makes a Game Good?
I can't answer this for everyone else, so I'll answer as best as I can for myself and see where you folks stand.
What I like to see in a game is choice. The more choices about things the better. The problem is if the system is complex and over-burdening then it's very easy to say screw it and go pick up something else. However if the game is laid out in an accessible way while still offering plenty of choice to those who want to dig deeper then I usually find myself enjoying my time. That doesn't mean I don't like straight forward shoot em up games from time to time, but I much prefer to have as much impact on the story as possible. I'll rate a few things here on a scale of 1-10 with how much I care about the given feature.
Graphics: 6/10
I like for games to be stylized. That doesn't mean the graphics have to be photo realistic, but I don't like for them to have that fuzzy sort of feel to them. I prefer graphics to have a clean, easy to look at feel. It doesn't matter if the game is cartoonish, photo realistic or somewhere in between as long as there are some appealing sides to it. If it's the equivalent of a black background with dark red text, then I'll likely pass.
Sound: 9/10
I value this very highly. Whether it be the music or the in game sounds from units, spells, NPCs, walking etc it has to sound well done. If the sounds aren't believable then the game isn't believable. Well done music is a huge plus to me. A game like Left 4 Dead for example does great things with music. The tempo and songs change when events occur in game, much like a movie. I eventually turned off music when playing L4D because it kinda bothered me, but the idea itself was brilliant imo. I think an overlooked feature is the opportunity to load your own music in to play as a soundtrack for you over the in game music. Even going so far as allowing you to select triggers for certain specific songs or sounds to occur. Giving the players control over something like this might be a win or it might be a fail, but I'd like to see it tried with a large scale game.
Replayability: 9/10
Very important. I like to get my moneys worth when I buy a game. If it's only going to last me 5-10 hours then I usually have a hard time parting with that $50 (plus whatever subscription fees if applicable). There are times when a 5-10 hour experience with a game is worth having (whether it's in 1 sitting or over the span of a week or two), but only if the story is well done. MMOs are appealing to me partly because they allow you to play 1 game (maybe 1 or 2 on the side) for a year and be happy about it, assuming the game does well. Generally games have to have enough content to keep me busy, but at the same time I prefer quality content over a quantity of it. Tons of content is pointless if there's no fun or reason in participating in said content. It's a balancing act many games have succeeded at and many have failed at.
Story: 7/10
It's nice to have a good story to go with a game whether you pay attention to it or not. In some games I burn through content without reading any quests while in others I take my time and check everything out. An example of a game with an interesting take on telling a story is LotRO. I'm partly biased because I'm a big fan of Lord of the Rings, but they also did a very good job with PvE in general. Turbine made you feel like you were a part of the story. There were key locations and plenty of RP hangouts. I myself didn't RP, but I did enjoy watching people RP in the Prancing Pony in Bree (I played on Landroval, the unofficial RP server). Anyways if a game doesn't have a solid story to explain what's happening then usually you lose focus of what exactly it is you're doing in game. If PvP is the main aspect of the game then I expect that there is a solid reason for us to be fighting each other in the first place and I expect that the story will be driven by our fighting.
Community: 10/10
This only really applies in multiplayer games. Community is the single most important thing to me when I play a multiplayer game. If you meet interesting people then the game will be interesting. If you meet dull, boring people (such as myself) then the game can get boring very quick. Finding a tight community and finding people who are similar to you in terms of play style and maturity is great. Playing alongside a bunch of people who only care about trash talking and ruining your game experience isn't all that much fun. The best players don't need to talk trash. The best people try to help others become better and to have more fun. If you find people who have a combination of those 2 things, then you've hit the jackpot. I feel there are plenty of people who are good players and/or good people, but they often have selfish tendencies. This isn't entirely their fault as many games foster this type of behavior. That's something I watch for in games. Is the goal of this game team or individually oriented. If it's based around grouping and teamwork then the community is often good. I also tend to pick RP servers as the communities there are usually more my style (whether RPing is widespread or not).
There are a few other features that I could grade, but overall I think these are the most important to me. I do want to stress that this is a question that can only really be answered individually and I'm not saying that I'm right and everyone else is wrong. A good game to you may not be a good game to me. There are also a lot of side questions like, why are these features important? Are good games defined by past experiences? Are we generally unwilling to try games that are outside our comfort zone? Perhaps, but that discussion is one that will wait until another day.
What's your take on this subject?
What I like to see in a game is choice. The more choices about things the better. The problem is if the system is complex and over-burdening then it's very easy to say screw it and go pick up something else. However if the game is laid out in an accessible way while still offering plenty of choice to those who want to dig deeper then I usually find myself enjoying my time. That doesn't mean I don't like straight forward shoot em up games from time to time, but I much prefer to have as much impact on the story as possible. I'll rate a few things here on a scale of 1-10 with how much I care about the given feature.
Graphics: 6/10
I like for games to be stylized. That doesn't mean the graphics have to be photo realistic, but I don't like for them to have that fuzzy sort of feel to them. I prefer graphics to have a clean, easy to look at feel. It doesn't matter if the game is cartoonish, photo realistic or somewhere in between as long as there are some appealing sides to it. If it's the equivalent of a black background with dark red text, then I'll likely pass.
Sound: 9/10
I value this very highly. Whether it be the music or the in game sounds from units, spells, NPCs, walking etc it has to sound well done. If the sounds aren't believable then the game isn't believable. Well done music is a huge plus to me. A game like Left 4 Dead for example does great things with music. The tempo and songs change when events occur in game, much like a movie. I eventually turned off music when playing L4D because it kinda bothered me, but the idea itself was brilliant imo. I think an overlooked feature is the opportunity to load your own music in to play as a soundtrack for you over the in game music. Even going so far as allowing you to select triggers for certain specific songs or sounds to occur. Giving the players control over something like this might be a win or it might be a fail, but I'd like to see it tried with a large scale game.
Replayability: 9/10
Very important. I like to get my moneys worth when I buy a game. If it's only going to last me 5-10 hours then I usually have a hard time parting with that $50 (plus whatever subscription fees if applicable). There are times when a 5-10 hour experience with a game is worth having (whether it's in 1 sitting or over the span of a week or two), but only if the story is well done. MMOs are appealing to me partly because they allow you to play 1 game (maybe 1 or 2 on the side) for a year and be happy about it, assuming the game does well. Generally games have to have enough content to keep me busy, but at the same time I prefer quality content over a quantity of it. Tons of content is pointless if there's no fun or reason in participating in said content. It's a balancing act many games have succeeded at and many have failed at.
Story: 7/10
It's nice to have a good story to go with a game whether you pay attention to it or not. In some games I burn through content without reading any quests while in others I take my time and check everything out. An example of a game with an interesting take on telling a story is LotRO. I'm partly biased because I'm a big fan of Lord of the Rings, but they also did a very good job with PvE in general. Turbine made you feel like you were a part of the story. There were key locations and plenty of RP hangouts. I myself didn't RP, but I did enjoy watching people RP in the Prancing Pony in Bree (I played on Landroval, the unofficial RP server). Anyways if a game doesn't have a solid story to explain what's happening then usually you lose focus of what exactly it is you're doing in game. If PvP is the main aspect of the game then I expect that there is a solid reason for us to be fighting each other in the first place and I expect that the story will be driven by our fighting.
Community: 10/10
This only really applies in multiplayer games. Community is the single most important thing to me when I play a multiplayer game. If you meet interesting people then the game will be interesting. If you meet dull, boring people (such as myself) then the game can get boring very quick. Finding a tight community and finding people who are similar to you in terms of play style and maturity is great. Playing alongside a bunch of people who only care about trash talking and ruining your game experience isn't all that much fun. The best players don't need to talk trash. The best people try to help others become better and to have more fun. If you find people who have a combination of those 2 things, then you've hit the jackpot. I feel there are plenty of people who are good players and/or good people, but they often have selfish tendencies. This isn't entirely their fault as many games foster this type of behavior. That's something I watch for in games. Is the goal of this game team or individually oriented. If it's based around grouping and teamwork then the community is often good. I also tend to pick RP servers as the communities there are usually more my style (whether RPing is widespread or not).
There are a few other features that I could grade, but overall I think these are the most important to me. I do want to stress that this is a question that can only really be answered individually and I'm not saying that I'm right and everyone else is wrong. A good game to you may not be a good game to me. There are also a lot of side questions like, why are these features important? Are good games defined by past experiences? Are we generally unwilling to try games that are outside our comfort zone? Perhaps, but that discussion is one that will wait until another day.
What's your take on this subject?
Sunday, February 22, 2009
My WAR History
I thought maybe I should post up what I've done so far in Warhammer so that in future blog entries any readers I may have will know where I'm coming from.
When WAR came out a thread was started by a fellow player on our server forums in Lotro. The point of it was to organize players on the server who wanted to try WAR. After spending a day or so in beta I contacted the person who started the thread (taugrim) and asked if he was interested in starting a guild in WAR to organize players from Landroval (our Lotro server). Eventually we decided it might not be a bad idea and if the guild fell apart after a while then so be it. We thought it'd be cool to pick a name that was reminded us of lotro while also making sense in WAR. Eventually we reached the conclusion that Conjunction would fit the bill (conjunctions were group moves that could be performed in lotro). So once the game went live we formed up with 6 people. Here is a link to our guild stats now (clicking on our name will yeild more info). We've grown a lot and we've stuck together. There have been hard times, but taugrim has proved to be a great guild leader and I can see the guild staying together for a long time. Now on to my play time in WAR...
I started out in open beta playing a Marauder. I had previously played a Champion (mdps) in Lord of the Rings Online and I wanted to pick something I would be somewhat familiar with. On top of that I wanted to play Destruction because they had the "cooler" classes. I ended up dying to 5 mobs in the cemetery near the Chaos starting area. My first quest and I died. Yes it was an accident and I didn't mean to pull the extra mobs, but I took it as an omen and tried a Bright Wizard. I know, you're thinking, "What? You go from playing a mdps on Destruction to playing a rdps on Order just like that?" and the answer is yes. I wanted to test a lot of classes and being uninterested in the Chaos starting zone I thought I'd try Empire. So I loaded my BW in after customizing his look (I made him look as ridiculous as possible given that it was beta) and got to work on some quests and scenarios. I was having an absolute blast. Throwing fireballs around and doing lots of damage seemed like my kind of gig. I couldn't see myself playing anything else.
So I continued playing my Bright Wizard and felt oh so powerful along the whole journey. Topping damage in nearly every scenario I was in felt good and made it feel like I was doing something. It was in T2 and T3 where I started using fraps to capture scenarios and 1v1 fights to then post on youtube. I had learned about this process from taugrim (link to his youtube page). He had made a lot of videos in lotro and they were both entertaining and filled with useful information. I thought I'd try my hand at it, so I started a youtube profile, purchased the full version of fraps and got at it. Here is a link to my youtube page. As you can see I don't have nearly as many videos or followers as taugrim, but I use a similar approach. Anyways to move on, I ranked up my BW to 40 and found that our guild was lacking tanks and mdps, so I decided to roll a White Lion. Taugrim had also been playing a BW at the time, but he switched to Swordmaster so that our guild would have another tank. So now we were short on rdps, but it didn't matter that much to us because we both were having more fun and felt more useful on our melees (this was before the BW nerf).
White Lion was a very fun class. It's incredibly mobile and has all sorts of tools and dps to fit into most situations comfortably. I didn't think I'd like the pet when I first rolled the class, but I found use for it other than just fetching targets. We'll see how 1.2 impacts White Lions, but I don't imagine I'll go back to playing him full time. So to move things along here....I was only R40 on my WL for a month or so when I decided to finally level my Rune Priest. RPs and Zealots are my favorite class in the game which surprised me as I'd never been into the idea of being a healer before. I'm still currently ranking my RP up, but he's R37 now and on the downhill portion of the grind. Yes solo leveling as a healer is a grind and I hate it, but once you get rolling it isn't all that bad.
So I jumped around a little and cut a few things out, but overall that's more or less my WAR history so far. I've been testing Slayers on the pts and it looks like I may have to rank another character up once they release. Anyways there you go. Now you know a little something about me so in future posts I can reference back to this if need be. My future entries will be less about me and more about the games I'm playing.
Later.
When WAR came out a thread was started by a fellow player on our server forums in Lotro. The point of it was to organize players on the server who wanted to try WAR. After spending a day or so in beta I contacted the person who started the thread (taugrim) and asked if he was interested in starting a guild in WAR to organize players from Landroval (our Lotro server). Eventually we decided it might not be a bad idea and if the guild fell apart after a while then so be it. We thought it'd be cool to pick a name that was reminded us of lotro while also making sense in WAR. Eventually we reached the conclusion that Conjunction would fit the bill (conjunctions were group moves that could be performed in lotro). So once the game went live we formed up with 6 people. Here is a link to our guild stats now (clicking on our name will yeild more info). We've grown a lot and we've stuck together. There have been hard times, but taugrim has proved to be a great guild leader and I can see the guild staying together for a long time. Now on to my play time in WAR...
I started out in open beta playing a Marauder. I had previously played a Champion (mdps) in Lord of the Rings Online and I wanted to pick something I would be somewhat familiar with. On top of that I wanted to play Destruction because they had the "cooler" classes. I ended up dying to 5 mobs in the cemetery near the Chaos starting area. My first quest and I died. Yes it was an accident and I didn't mean to pull the extra mobs, but I took it as an omen and tried a Bright Wizard. I know, you're thinking, "What? You go from playing a mdps on Destruction to playing a rdps on Order just like that?" and the answer is yes. I wanted to test a lot of classes and being uninterested in the Chaos starting zone I thought I'd try Empire. So I loaded my BW in after customizing his look (I made him look as ridiculous as possible given that it was beta) and got to work on some quests and scenarios. I was having an absolute blast. Throwing fireballs around and doing lots of damage seemed like my kind of gig. I couldn't see myself playing anything else.
So I continued playing my Bright Wizard and felt oh so powerful along the whole journey. Topping damage in nearly every scenario I was in felt good and made it feel like I was doing something. It was in T2 and T3 where I started using fraps to capture scenarios and 1v1 fights to then post on youtube. I had learned about this process from taugrim (link to his youtube page). He had made a lot of videos in lotro and they were both entertaining and filled with useful information. I thought I'd try my hand at it, so I started a youtube profile, purchased the full version of fraps and got at it. Here is a link to my youtube page. As you can see I don't have nearly as many videos or followers as taugrim, but I use a similar approach. Anyways to move on, I ranked up my BW to 40 and found that our guild was lacking tanks and mdps, so I decided to roll a White Lion. Taugrim had also been playing a BW at the time, but he switched to Swordmaster so that our guild would have another tank. So now we were short on rdps, but it didn't matter that much to us because we both were having more fun and felt more useful on our melees (this was before the BW nerf).
White Lion was a very fun class. It's incredibly mobile and has all sorts of tools and dps to fit into most situations comfortably. I didn't think I'd like the pet when I first rolled the class, but I found use for it other than just fetching targets. We'll see how 1.2 impacts White Lions, but I don't imagine I'll go back to playing him full time. So to move things along here....I was only R40 on my WL for a month or so when I decided to finally level my Rune Priest. RPs and Zealots are my favorite class in the game which surprised me as I'd never been into the idea of being a healer before. I'm still currently ranking my RP up, but he's R37 now and on the downhill portion of the grind. Yes solo leveling as a healer is a grind and I hate it, but once you get rolling it isn't all that bad.
So I jumped around a little and cut a few things out, but overall that's more or less my WAR history so far. I've been testing Slayers on the pts and it looks like I may have to rank another character up once they release. Anyways there you go. Now you know a little something about me so in future posts I can reference back to this if need be. My future entries will be less about me and more about the games I'm playing.
Later.
Games...
So this is my first post. Someday down the road this blog may be known, or it may fade to the background never to be seen. Whatever this blogs fate may be I will write what makes sense to me and hope people enjoy reading it. This blog will be focused primarily around games, but I like to discuss all sorts of things so I may stray from time to time. At any rate, here goes my first post!
I like all sorts of games. I play real time strategy games, massively multiplayer online games, single player role playing games, shooters and the occasional puzzle game. I've been gaming for most of my life, but over the past 2 years MMOs have taken the spotlight. I started off with Lord of the Rings Online and played that from beta until the launch of Warhammer Online. I'm currently still playing Warhammer, but I'm watching a few games on the horizon. Empire: Total War and Darkfall are 2 games I'm interested in right now though I'm having second thoughts about trying Darkfall at release. I imagine the game will be very fun for many people and I hope it succeeds whether I get around to trying it or not.
In order for games to evolve Developers must go out on a limb and try something new, but it has to be done successfully for an idea to really stick. Many small studios seem to have a go for broke approach and often indie and small dev games aspire to be things that would rock the gaming world, but they often don't succeed. It's tough enough to create anything other than a cut and dry sequal these days. For example, I'd be plenty happy playing Madden 04 over Madden 09 simply because they are the same game. Each year they add some bullshit scam of a feature and call it revolutionary. This type of game making doesn't help the gaming industry evolve, but it does help it expand. The more people buying games, the wider the audience "niche" games can appeal to. So in a way it does help the gaming industry evolve, but only as much as the customers allow it to with their wallets.
I'm going to change the focus for a minute and talk about what I'm currently playing.
Warhammer Online: Warhammer is a game I had huge expectations for and now after having played it for a few months I feel it delivers on some while it doesn't on others. I'll break WAR down into different categories.
PvE: PvE in WAR is abysmal. There is nothing to keep you wanting to quest or mob grind other than being at max level so you can escape the process. At the same time the only real reason to level in WAR is to PvE because you can PvP in every tier. It can be argued that gaining new skills makes ranking up worthwhile as it makes PvP become more diverse, but it's undeniable that the endgame is comprised of mostly PvE content. All Keeps, Forts and Cities have NPCs and the only way to take each is to kill a PvE boss. PvE instances help players get better gear that allows them to continue reaching new levels of PvE farming. Gear is PvE in WAR. Fortunately true PvP can be done without special gear, although better gear will offer an equally skilled player an advantage.
PvP: Extremely well done. Overall class balance and playability is awesome. There seems to be this expectation these days that every game has to have 3 things; 1) a perfect launch, 2) every feature under the sun, and 3) perfect class balance for every situation. These goals cannot be met by most gaming teams and it shouldn't be set as the standard since no online game that I know of has had any of these things. So why is it the standard to which many hold games? Because we are often lied to and told games will have this or that and so our expectations rise, but are then smashed when we see that the beach is really a sandbox with a shovel and bucket.
Immersion: There are pros and cons here as well. I personally cannot enjoy myself if I'm not doing PvP (or RvR/Realm vs Realm as Mythic calls it). Exploring the game world for hidden lairs is fun as well and I think Mythic did a good job of offering cool places to explore, but they didn't give us much reason to do so. Many gamers are already fairly lazy when it comes to time spent in game, but that is especially true with how simple WAR is. You are told where to go, when to go and exactly what to do. Frankly in a game with levels I like that because I want to get through the content quickly once I catch glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel (sometimes it's not the light you expected though). I don't consider this a "carebear" system, but even if it is I don't think that makes it a "bad" system.
Overall I'd say WAR is an 8/10. It's fun, but it's still not quite what I expected or hoped for. I imagine I'll be playing it for a while especially with Slayers/Choppas on the horizon.
Left 4 Dead: Left 4 Dead is a great shooter in the short term, but it runs out of steam (pun intended) after a while given that there are only a handful of maps. I had a lot of fun using the console to change settings with a few friends, but after a while even spawning tanks on unsuspecting friends gets boring. The straight up game offers a ton of fun though as it pits you up against the environment, infected and special infected all randomly with the aidirector. I am a huge fan of zombie type games/movies, but I often feel a little let down after playing/watching them. I hope a sandbox survival zombie game comes along that fits the visual style of L4D. That'd blow my mind.
Medeival II Total War: This game has been out for a while now, but I often go back to single player games like this after a few months break. Normally I don't stay long and I suspect that I will cease to play this in the coming week, but it has offered my a little bit of fun. I'm a huge fan of the series and I highly anticipate the release of Empire Total War.
That's about all I'm playing now. Most of my gaming time is spent with Warhammer Online. I have been testing Slayers and Choppas on the public test server and I like what I see.
And that's that. I hope some folks stumble across this blog and enjoy my posts. Please leave comments and feedback to help make this blog a place of discussion and to allow me to improve. Later =).
I like all sorts of games. I play real time strategy games, massively multiplayer online games, single player role playing games, shooters and the occasional puzzle game. I've been gaming for most of my life, but over the past 2 years MMOs have taken the spotlight. I started off with Lord of the Rings Online and played that from beta until the launch of Warhammer Online. I'm currently still playing Warhammer, but I'm watching a few games on the horizon. Empire: Total War and Darkfall are 2 games I'm interested in right now though I'm having second thoughts about trying Darkfall at release. I imagine the game will be very fun for many people and I hope it succeeds whether I get around to trying it or not.
In order for games to evolve Developers must go out on a limb and try something new, but it has to be done successfully for an idea to really stick. Many small studios seem to have a go for broke approach and often indie and small dev games aspire to be things that would rock the gaming world, but they often don't succeed. It's tough enough to create anything other than a cut and dry sequal these days. For example, I'd be plenty happy playing Madden 04 over Madden 09 simply because they are the same game. Each year they add some bullshit scam of a feature and call it revolutionary. This type of game making doesn't help the gaming industry evolve, but it does help it expand. The more people buying games, the wider the audience "niche" games can appeal to. So in a way it does help the gaming industry evolve, but only as much as the customers allow it to with their wallets.
I'm going to change the focus for a minute and talk about what I'm currently playing.
Warhammer Online: Warhammer is a game I had huge expectations for and now after having played it for a few months I feel it delivers on some while it doesn't on others. I'll break WAR down into different categories.
PvE: PvE in WAR is abysmal. There is nothing to keep you wanting to quest or mob grind other than being at max level so you can escape the process. At the same time the only real reason to level in WAR is to PvE because you can PvP in every tier. It can be argued that gaining new skills makes ranking up worthwhile as it makes PvP become more diverse, but it's undeniable that the endgame is comprised of mostly PvE content. All Keeps, Forts and Cities have NPCs and the only way to take each is to kill a PvE boss. PvE instances help players get better gear that allows them to continue reaching new levels of PvE farming. Gear is PvE in WAR. Fortunately true PvP can be done without special gear, although better gear will offer an equally skilled player an advantage.
PvP: Extremely well done. Overall class balance and playability is awesome. There seems to be this expectation these days that every game has to have 3 things; 1) a perfect launch, 2) every feature under the sun, and 3) perfect class balance for every situation. These goals cannot be met by most gaming teams and it shouldn't be set as the standard since no online game that I know of has had any of these things. So why is it the standard to which many hold games? Because we are often lied to and told games will have this or that and so our expectations rise, but are then smashed when we see that the beach is really a sandbox with a shovel and bucket.
Immersion: There are pros and cons here as well. I personally cannot enjoy myself if I'm not doing PvP (or RvR/Realm vs Realm as Mythic calls it). Exploring the game world for hidden lairs is fun as well and I think Mythic did a good job of offering cool places to explore, but they didn't give us much reason to do so. Many gamers are already fairly lazy when it comes to time spent in game, but that is especially true with how simple WAR is. You are told where to go, when to go and exactly what to do. Frankly in a game with levels I like that because I want to get through the content quickly once I catch glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel (sometimes it's not the light you expected though). I don't consider this a "carebear" system, but even if it is I don't think that makes it a "bad" system.
Overall I'd say WAR is an 8/10. It's fun, but it's still not quite what I expected or hoped for. I imagine I'll be playing it for a while especially with Slayers/Choppas on the horizon.
Left 4 Dead: Left 4 Dead is a great shooter in the short term, but it runs out of steam (pun intended) after a while given that there are only a handful of maps. I had a lot of fun using the console to change settings with a few friends, but after a while even spawning tanks on unsuspecting friends gets boring. The straight up game offers a ton of fun though as it pits you up against the environment, infected and special infected all randomly with the aidirector. I am a huge fan of zombie type games/movies, but I often feel a little let down after playing/watching them. I hope a sandbox survival zombie game comes along that fits the visual style of L4D. That'd blow my mind.
Medeival II Total War: This game has been out for a while now, but I often go back to single player games like this after a few months break. Normally I don't stay long and I suspect that I will cease to play this in the coming week, but it has offered my a little bit of fun. I'm a huge fan of the series and I highly anticipate the release of Empire Total War.
That's about all I'm playing now. Most of my gaming time is spent with Warhammer Online. I have been testing Slayers and Choppas on the public test server and I like what I see.
And that's that. I hope some folks stumble across this blog and enjoy my posts. Please leave comments and feedback to help make this blog a place of discussion and to allow me to improve. Later =).
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