The MMO Gamer

Warhammer Online: Open Beta

Well, I finally obtained my Warhammer Online Open Beta key last week like many of you, I’m sure, from the pre-order of Warhamer Online Special Edition from Gamestop. I was told that Open Beta will begin on  Saturday, August 16, 2008.

I’m actually looking forward to trying out Warhammer Online myself and see if it actually deserves all those E3 awards. I’m not saying Mythic has a bad track record, far from it, as I have played Dark Age of Camelot and liked the whole Realm Vs Realm with seige weapons, but I admitt that I was not even close to reaching the end game. I jumped game when Asheron’s Call 2 came out and we all know how that game turned out. Hey, I had a soft spot for Asheron’s Call since that was my first MMO game.

I’m just praying that Warhammer Online is polished when it launches next month. To be honest, I’m a little worried that Mythic is being rushed to push this product out the door. Age of Conan, despite having a decent launch, was launched without some end game stuff that was adveristed which got pretty boring for many quick players.

The fact that Mythic is releasing Warhammer Online next month with missing classes from a few races, like the Dark Elves, Empire, Dwarfs, and Greenskins, makes me a little nervous about the condition of the game. I know they will add them in later, but there will be balancing issues when those classes do get introducted that will take months to years to solve.

Mythic also changed the RvR end game battlefronts recently as well. Orignially, each pair of race was even a battlefront with sacking the other race’s city as the goal. In short, there was 6 capital cities in the game to fight over. However, Mythic recently changed it to just one huge end game battlefront with the Empire’s and Chaos’ capital city as the only two cities that players attack and defend against. However, the 3 racial fronts are replaced with fortresses and these fortresses must be controlled in order to attack the main city.

I understand this was done to get your allies to care more about what was happening to your side of the front as their city was all no risk of danger as long as it was happening over there type of thing and to funnel the players together for epic battles. But…I would like to be able to sack the High Elves’ capital city as a Dark Elf, for example, as that is what Dark Elves truly care about. The Empire’s city is not as satisfying to a Dark Elf.

Whatever, I will not say more till I actually try out the game and play it retail for a few months or so. There’s always Wraith of the Lich King if Warhammer Online fails me…