Week of WAR – Day 1
Okay okay, I lied. I did not roll Order after all. I rolled Chaos on the Dark Crag server. I was going to roll Order to play with Goon Squad but then I remembered how the thought of playing Order nauseates me so I decided to roll Destruction. It was nice to also find out that it just happens to be the server some old friends from my WoW server play on.
So I got in a few hours of Warhammer last night. After perfecting the looks of my Chaos Zealot in character creation, I spent the next half hour getting used to the interface and completely moving my AI around.
I started by doing a couple quests and then hopped into a scenario for Nordenwatch. I tried my best to heal people all around and the bolster mechanic is pretty freaking cool, but overall I was just overwhelmed and inundated with information. After getting out of the scenario, I spent a few minutes to try to collect my thoughts and process all the new information before logging off and downloading mods.
To be honest, I think the basic UI is terrible, but then again, so is the Blizzard UI. One nice thing in WAR is a built in UI editor. I spent the next hour downloading mods and tinkering with the UI.
Overall, I got to rank 7 and renown rank 6 by the end of the night. I did the tier 1 chaos public quest twice and a couple of the tier 2 public quests until a level 20 warrior priest decided to just sit there and kill anyone approached.
My initial impressions are... middle of the road. I feel held back due to my own gaming habits. My friend (Moderation from SockPuppets) gave me the advice that the best way to level up was simply to queue for scenarios, do RvR and public quests and to only quest as a last resort. I find it very hard to take that advice as I am used to just questing always. To top things off, I am a complete completionist. It pains my soul when I do not finish a quest hub or when I leave an influence bar unfilled before moving on.
Ignoring early game quests and not completing every influence bar will not gimp my character in late game, will it?
Once I get past these personal shortcomings and habits, I think I will enjoy the game a lot more.
The graphics of the game also do not seem that good. From the areas I saw, the textures seem to be very low resolution and not that smooth. I thought I might have had the graphics turned down, but I found everything was maxxed out on my system. It is just another thing that will probably take some getting used to. Once I am more familiar with everything, I do not think they will bother me as much.
Lastly, I do not know if I like Zealots. I am only level 7 but it seems that I die far to easy and I do not heal enough. When we did the first chaos public quest, I was with three other people, a chosen, a magus and a maurauder, all level 4 and I could not keep the tank up against the final blood demon boss. I have read though that zealots in end game are the best burst damage healers.
I am really tempted to check out the Shaman or Disciple of Khaine tonight. A friend from my WoW server is picking up the game today so I might just roll one of those classes to play with him.
How does the Shaman and DoK stack up to Zealots if they are all healing spec'd? Also, how is survivability of all three of them comparatively?
I can say now thought that I definitely see how this game would be much more enjoyable if consistently playing with a group of friends around your level. Depending on how things go, I think at the moment I am still 50/50 on if I plan to pick up the game after my trial week is over.
EDIT: If it seems like I am hating on this game, I am not. I did really enjoy last night. I just need to get settled in to enjoy it a lot more.