Warhammer Online: Past, Present and Future
I am weak. I am very weak. This new news that came from Mythic today may or may have made me interested trying Warhammer. Anyways, I'll talk about that later. As for right now, I have some questions on why certain things are being treated the way they are.
Why were the Knights of the Blazing Sun and now the Choppa and Slayer seen as "new content"? In all the news posts I read, it says things like "Mythic is adding brand new classes to the game" like it is something new huge. But in actuality, they're not adding anything new, they're just adding back what they had previously cut (yes yes, I know they classes may have had mechanic tweaks or whatever, but they still had them mostly made when the game was still in development). I just don't understand why they're being praised for what they should have shipped the game with. They're not adding to the game, they're completing what should have already been done before the game officially launched.
Also, what is the future for Warhammer players that don't like alts? What is the future for someone who just likes to play one main and never switch? Almost every blogger I subscribe to has at least one and often a multitude of alts.
What is the future of the game beyond the implementation of the Choppa and Slayer? I'm talking about what will there be to do that isn't going to get boring and repetitive. Running the same scenarios again and again gets repetitive. It's why I never would do battlegrounds grinding in WoW. Charging the same keeps again and again in the same ways gets boring after a while as well. Right now, there's only one enemy city to attack (if your realm ever gets the chance) which would lead to it being quite boring. If they ever patch in the other two cities, that will add a little bit of content but since city sieges are few and far between, not enough content.
There's news of this new Darkness Falls style dungeon that will be neat for a while but after a while, I think it'll get boring as well. The raids in WoW get boring but every 6 months or so you get new ones to keep it entertaining.
What will the expansions of Warhammer contain? They can't raise the level cap. That wouldn't be feasible. The kings of the cities are the final boss of the game. They are today, they will be tomorrow and they will be in 5 years. So that means they have to expand horizontally and just add new races, new cities and new classes. This ties back into the fact that I don't like alts. I have one main. Always. So what would expansion content offer for someone like me.
Either way, I think I might be interested in hoping into the game for a 7 day trial or whatever they offer but I have to pick the race/class I want to play. I need your help for this.
I want to be a healer. That's it. I want to stand back from the front lines and heal people. I don't want to do damage, I don't want to be "in the action". I just want to stand back and throw heals until the cows come home. It's what I do best and it is what I enjoy. At the same time, I am used to playing a paladin in WoW. I want to be decently armored. I don't want to be wearing cloth and die to one hit of whatever blinks at me. So what is a class where I can just be resilient as hell, throw heals for eternity and not do any damage?
Anyways, I hope some of you leave some comments and suggestions about topics in this post because I'm really curious.
January 29th, 2009 - 18:46
Investigate a Rune Priest.
Sure they wear cloth, however they
a) Stand at the back and heal
b) Can spec gear into toughness to prevent them being one shooted
c) have an array of spells/talnets which can get them out of trouble if they are targetted
d) make awesome healing machines
At level 24 I was outhealing practically everyone in scenario’s even those of a much higher level than me and my survivability was awesome. Usually suffering 1 or 0 deaths in a scenario. It was the first time I seriously felt ‘uber’ as a healer.
January 30th, 2009 - 09:09
Just some quick thoughts:
More classes also means more diverse enemies to fight, and more diverse groups to form. In a game all about matchups and horizontal growth, new classes help even those who don’t play them.
If the new dungeon is anything like Darkness Falls was in DAoC, it will be far beyond a traditional dungeon. Think of a mix between a raid and RvR, but with pure win. That was DF, and hopefully that will be the new dungeon in WAR.
And overall, I think Mythic is really trying to fix RvR up and make it all ‘click’. The next patch should improve the zone lock mechanic, making the whole war campaign a lot smoother and more responsive. Keeps will also be overhauled (hopefully soon), and more areas to fight never hurts.
As for class, are you going Destruction or Order? The Rune Priest and Zealot are mirrors, and are the closest thing to ‘pure healers’ in WAR. Both the Shaman and Archmage are a mix a healing and ranged dps, and the Warrior Priest / DoK are melee healers. That said, the WP/DoK are the toughest, with the RP and Zealot being squishy. Oddly the Shaman/Archmage get the least attention of the healers in WAR, so that might work if only because you won’t be the prime target at all times. Having a bit of ranged dps ability also does not hurt.