Warhammer Online?! You're kidding. (1 Viewer)

[MadMommaMoo]

Okay, admittedly I have heard TONS of hype regarding this game. TONS. But for the first time I actually went and looked at their official site today and I have to say....I don't get it. That has GOT to be the UGLIEST mmorpg I have EVER seen. The color palette is dreary, dark, and completely unappealing in every sense of the word. I cannot imagine spending endless hours questing in zones that LOOK like that. Even the character models are dark and ugly. So far I haven't seen or read ANYthing on the site that has inspired me to further consider playing that. YUCK.

Now, mind you, I'm not necessarily into the fairytale pastels of oh...Final Fantasy or something. World of Warcraft is colorful and at least VARIED from zone to zone some, but not even THAT is necessary if the gameplay looks good and the characters have some sort of appeal. But I seriously can't find ANYTHING about Warhammer that appeals to me at all.

I'm glad other people seem to look to this game as a possible replacement for World of Warcraft, but it's certainly not for ME. To me it looks depressing. The storyline is depressing, the characters are depressing, the colors are depressing, it just looks totally YUCK to me.

I guess I'm going to have to eventually check into playing LotRO or something else, or hope for some OTHER new game on the horizon, because I am NOT going to spend 4-8 hours a day playing that ugly, dark, dreary looking Warhammer. Nope. Not going to happen.

I know there are other more important aspects to a game than the way it "looks," however....when I'm playing I have no choice but to LOOK at the game I'm playing. Sometimes I am spending hours and hours SEEING it. I think if I had to look at THAT game every day, I would fall into a deep depression. Not worth the risk.

Since I know this is a very UNpopular opinion, I expect the flames to begin burning now....

Commence....

 

[Runned]

Warhammer has a target audience of pasty, socially inept fat kids who spend thousands of dollars painting little figurines just for funsies. Kids who will make characters named Grogg the Neverending Dark Lord and guilds called Blackness of Dark Nights and Blood.

It's not for everybody, and I doubt I'd play for the same reasons. I'm the guy who played EQ and hung out in Rivervale all the time just to chill out and listen to the music. Where's hello kitty island adventure when you need it?

 

[MadMommaMoo]

"Where's hello kitty island adventure when you need it?"

ROFLMAO!!! You, me, and Butters too! :P

And I have to admit...there are areas of games that I "hang out" too, just to "chill" and listen to the pretty soundtrack. LOL! I admit it...I want more than JUST dank, dark, creepy, violent depravity in a game. I want BALANCE for god's sake! Show me some rainbows and LIGHT along with those dark, foreboding, murderous caverns of lore!

 

[Cocaloch]

Hey I was that pasty white kid. ( Although I did have street cred as I was the only white kid not called a cracker by our gansta brothers) And if you think thats bad wait for the warhammer 40k mmo.

 

[Khatib]

Gameplay over graphics. Nice looking games are always a bonus, but when it's something I wanna potentially sink 50 or 100 or more days of /played time into... the color palette just isn't an issue for me.

Hopefully it plays well though, otherwise AoC will get it's shot.

 

[Jan]

If the "dreary" palette that worked so well in DAoC can also keep out whiny brats, then I'm all for it. :S

 

[MadMommaMoo]

Gameplay over graphics. Nice looking games are always a bonus, but when it's something I wanna potentially sink 50 or 100 or more days of /played time into... the color palette just isn't an issue for me.

Hopefully it plays well though, otherwise AoC will get it's shot.

For the amount of money these games cost....is it too much for us to ask for BOTH good gameplay and graphics that don't make you want to stab your eyes out with a pitchfork?

I think not.

 

[MadMommaMoo]

If the "dreary" palette that worked so well in DAoC can also keep out whiny brats, then I'm all for it. :S

Unfortunately, it's likely to do JUST the opposite. Those whiny brats consider themselves to be very dark, tough, uber leet gamers. They will be drawn to the excessively dark look. Expect TONS of emo kids whining at every turn.

Good luck. Good luck to you all.

 

[Naolin]

guilds called Blackness of Dark Nights and Blood.

I'm so joining a guild called that

 

[derkaderka]

Unfortunately, it's likely to do JUST the opposite. Those whiny brats consider themselves to be very dark, tough, uber leet gamers. They will be drawn to the excessively dark look. Expect TONS of emo kids whining at every turn.

Good luck. Good luck to you all.

Well then maybe it'll take some of them away from WoW. ROXXOR!

 

[imported_Khaz]

Whats this? A game about war and death that is dark and dreary?? WTF? I remember my grandpa talkin bout Nam and how they ran around under blue skies shooting spitballs at the enemy and laughing as they skipped and cavorted thru the fields of flowers. I am also pretty sure that my bud who was blown up overseas last year was probably just a victim of a helium tank accident when they were blowing up baloons for the party. So it only goes that a uber fantasy game about war should be uber bright and sunshiny! Pink battlearmor! Shiny yellow trebuchets that launch bubblegum (but only sometimes cuz its like, war, y'know?) Screw the dank caverns and gloomy battlefields! Brightly lit underground gardens filled with midgets who occasionally make witty comments! Open, grassy dells filled with pink flowers (cuz pink battlearmor+pink flowers=sweet pink Digi-cam) and local pesants who make witty comments about WHAAAAAGHs running over their rutabagas. That would be sweet!
OK, seriously tho, yeah the game is dank and gloomy as hell. Then again, Doom 3 was so dark it caused me to shun anything over a 10 watt lightbulb for a month after playing it, yet I still enjoyed it. Warhammer has always been a rather dark game, but from the reviews i still think it will be visually appealing. Like, your beard grows as you lvl up fer christ's sake! How freakin cool is that?

 

[Khatib]

Brightly lit underground gardens filled with midgets who occasionally make witty comments!

1. Bright colors

2. Witty midgets

3. ???

4. Profit!

 

[mven]

I don't care if it's gloomy looking. My problem is the game play itself looks pretty dreary and well... more of the same ole shit?

I don't really remember DAoC having a great playerbase but then maybe my server just sucked. Lots of retards and game play that supported them... At least in my experience.

 

[imported_Khaz]

1. Bright colors

2. Witty midgets

3. ???

4. Profit!

DING! DING! DING!

You just figured out the secret of game development,, you must now go forth and work as a brilliant game developer and make millions of dollars working for someone like Blizzard! Well perhaps not millions,, thousands! Thousands of dollars! Well fine, probably tens. Tens of dollars working for Blizzard!

Do you think I could be a GM in your new game?
:nerd:

 

[MadMommaMoo]

Well then maybe it'll take some of them away from WoW. ROXXOR!

You have a point there. =D Would it be appropriate for me to now cross my fingers and toes and go to church and light candles and say the rosary and....and....and.....

I mean...I can't hope or pray too hard.

 

[MadMommaMoo]

Whats this? A game about war and death that is dark and dreary?? WTF? I remember my grandpa talkin bout Nam and how they ran around under blue skies shooting spitballs at the enemy and laughing as they skipped and cavorted thru the fields of flowers. I am also pretty sure that my bud who was blown up overseas last year was probably just a victim of a helium tank accident when they were blowing up baloons for the party. So it only goes that a uber fantasy game about war should be uber bright and sunshiny! Pink battlearmor! Shiny yellow trebuchets that launch bubblegum (but only sometimes cuz its like, war, y'know?) Screw the dank caverns and gloomy battlefields! Brightly lit underground gardens filled with midgets who occasionally make witty comments! Open, grassy dells filled with pink flowers (cuz pink battlearmor+pink flowers=sweet pink Digi-cam) and local pesants who make witty comments about WHAAAAAGHs running over their rutabagas. That would be sweet!
OK, seriously tho, yeah the game is dank and gloomy as hell. Then again, Doom 3 was so dark it caused me to shun anything over a 10 watt lightbulb for a month after playing it, yet I still enjoyed it. Warhammer has always been a rather dark game, but from the reviews i still think it will be visually appealing. Like, your beard grows as you lvl up fer christ's sake! How freakin cool is that?

See...for ME, anyway, here's the lack of logic in the above statement. There are ALREADY "war games." The Call of Duty games fit the bill perfectly for dark and gloomy war games. Why infect the MMOrpg genre with that? Of course, I have to admit...there needs to be some creativity that goes beyond the SAME OLD orcs, elves, gnomes, trolls sort of bullshit that we see in EVERY rpg and MMOrpg, TOO!

And even World of Warcraft has dark, dank caverns and some more "dreary" places. Consider Duskwood as a zone. And there are plenty of dark foreboding instances, but they don't look FLAT. What I was looking at on the Warhammer site was FLAT looking, meaning....even dark colors don't have to be FLAT.

I'm probably OVERLY picky about colors and zone moods and whatnot, because my degree is in graphic design. No, not GAME design, just graphic design, like product packaging and advertising. Nonetheless...I tend to notice that sort of thing a LOT.

However, all of that being said.....gameplay is ultimately the most important thing. If the game has good gameplay and it is revolutionary in some OTHER ways, I still could be intrigued. I just didn't see anything on their site that communicated those sorts of unique differences to me.

 

[Khatib]

Then go play this:

http://www.sanriotown.com/onlinegame/index.php?s=introduction


Plenty of pastels and bright colors.

 

[Naolin]

Then go play this:

http://www.sanriotown.com/onlinegame/index.php?s=introduction


Plenty of pastels and bright colors.

My eyes, IT BURNSSSSS

god so it wasn't a joke, they made hello kitty online!

as for WAR,
yea I agree it looks kinda emm well I wouldn't call it dark, I would call it dull :p then again if you see the interviews with their team members it gets me really hyped up. Well I'm going to try it anyways, just because it ain't WoW :p

 

[MadMommaMoo]

Then go play this:

http://www.sanriotown.com/onlinegame/index.php?s=introduction


Plenty of pastels and bright colors.

Very funny.

I have to wonder if you even read my posts! LOL

I didn't SAY I liked THAT sort of ROT! :P Actually...those colors are EQUALLY flat....just BRIGHT and migraine-producing! No depth, dimension, or life in THOSE graphics either!! (Makes me feel sorry for the 6 year olds that are stuck playing that. How sad. hehe) I doubt that even Butters would REALLY play that! LOL!

That's like jumping from liberal Democrat to ultra-conservative right wing evangelical Republican. In other words....doesn't happen, and quite frankly....would make me vomit.

 

[imported_Khaz]

However, all of that being said.....gameplay is ultimately the most important thing. If the game has good gameplay and it is revolutionary in some OTHER ways, I still could be intrigued. I just didn't see anything on their site that communicated those sorts of unique differences to me.

I dunno, from what I read and heard, there SHOULD be a few things that would make this game a little different game play-wise. Heck take the collision detection aspect, they are saying that tanks can take advantage of narrow areas and choke points to hold back mobs (as foes cannot pass THRU characters) and the RvR dosent look like it will suck TOO bad (fingers crossed). Either way I will probably give it a shot just cuz it will be a change from WOW.. i think

 

[Cocaloch]

I always found warhammer as more of shades of gray instead of dark. Even the worst people aren't just evil for no reason they are doing what gods that can physically manifest themselfs tell them. How ever the good races tend to be 99% made up of corrupt people trying to make a buck or two off the bad situations. Evil is never too evil in purpose and good is rarely good in purpose either

 

[mven]

Isn't most of the WoW "look" a knockoff of Warhammer anyway?

Honestly though dreary colors mean nothing if the game play is superior. I don't think Warhammer will offer anything superior personally but if I am wrong I will gladly play it over WoW which is just the same rehashed shit over and over again.

 

[Khatib]

If they can make most of the end-game content be non-instanced rather than instanced, I'm in. Sounds like their ranks vs levels system will allow for fewer level gaps and more freedom to play with other people, regardless of their previous time spent playing the game. Those would both be big bonuses in my book.

 

[MadMommaMoo]

I dunno, from what I read and heard, there SHOULD be a few things that would make this game a little different game play-wise. Heck take the collision detection aspect, they are saying that tanks can take advantage of narrow areas and choke points to hold back mobs (as foes cannot pass THRU characters) and the RvR dosent look like it will suck TOO bad (fingers crossed). Either way I will probably give it a shot just cuz it will be a change from WOW.. i think

Ooo! Now I LIKE the idea of characters not being able to run THROUGH each other. That would definitely be a nice change. I hadn't heard or read about that. Hmm. Okay, I'm officially intrigued now. Flat dark colors be damned. If the gameplay, like I said, is in any way an improvement on the status quo of such games as EQ2 and WoW....I will look into it!

 

[Naolin]

I did some reading up on the graphics of Warhammer, seems like most character screenshots you see are still test graphics (if you compare screenshots all characters of one race are the same)

The dark colour pallet is probably gonna stay though, its pretty much part of the "lore"

 

[Khatib]

Ooo! Now I LIKE the idea of characters not being able to run THROUGH each other. That would definitely be a nice change. I hadn't heard or read about that. Hmm. Okay, I'm offically intrigued now. Flat dark colors be damned. If the gameplay, like I said, is in any way an improvement on the status quo of such games as EQ2 and WoW....I will look into it!

They're doing an interesting take on that too, which is that same faction characters can run through each other, opposite faction can not. Should keep towns easy to navigate, but make PvP more strategic. Although teams with good tactics will be able to use this heavily to their advantage, as the squishy character can take the path directly THROUGH their teammates' tank wall, while the melee toon chasing them will have to go around. But hey, when both teams can do it, it's all fair in the end.

 

[mven]

Hopefully they will keep the collision detection in for players. It seems that since EQ no one has really done much of that. IMO this is a huge deal for PvP. It always amused me to smash a caster into a corner with my barb warrior and beat the fuck out of them while they couldn't run.

 

[Naolin]

they seem to intent to keep it in, however what I read most (all?) classes have a way to "push back" players with certain skills (black orcs throwing people and stuff like that) well we just have to see, that certainly is one thing that is interesting.

 

[Arlochan]

"Where's hello kitty island adventure when you need it?"

ROFLMAO!!! You, me, and Butters too! :P

And I have to admit...there are areas of games that I "hang out" too, just to "chill" and listen to the pretty soundtrack. LOL! I admit it...I want more than JUST dank, dark, creepy, violent depravity in a game. I want BALANCE for god's sake! Show me some rainbows and LIGHT along with those dark, foreboding, murderous caverns of lore!

I cant wait for the expansion.... hello kitty iraq adventure

 

[Khatib]

Hopefully they will keep the collision detection in for players. It seems that since EQ no one has really done much of that.

See Lineage, Lineage 2. Two of the most popular MMO games in the Korean market. Also some of the most hardcore FFA PvP games on the market. Very steep penalties for death, and for wanton PKing even. And Lineage 3 has been announced, I'm sure they will do it as well.

 

[Khatib]

I cant wait for the expansion.... hello kitty iraq adventure

Includes 3 new pedophile NPCs that dispense free candy from the shop in the back of their van.

 

[Schazzwozzer]

1. The official Warhammer Online site sucks ass. It's ugly and boring, so if you went there, I'm not surprised you weren't impressed. It looks like the kind of site a boring, "smolder with generic rage" type of game would have.

2. Yeah, the graphics are more earth-tone than WoW. This is true of about 80% of the games out there.

It's not that bad, I think.

Not every place in the game is dark.

Another shot that I would argue does not look "dreary".

On the other hand, you have a point about the "flat" textures. Hopefully these are placeholders.​

Also note that they haven't shown anything of the two elven races yet. Elves are known to be pretty fruity-loop.

3. Anyone expecting this game to be robot jesus is going to be disappointed. It's pretty clearly a synthesis between the playability of WoW and the whole realm vs. realm concept of DAoC. It's not going to revolutionize the genre, but if you happen to be someone who enjoys WoW, but prefers Battlegrounds/PvP to raiding, then Warhammer might be for you.

4. Because I find the player accounts of actual playtime to be far more interesting than journalist write-ups, here's something I read over on the Something Awful forums, by a guy named Tabbran, QUOTED IN FULL.

At Comic Con this year (as last year), the EA Mythic guys had a booth there demoing Warhammer Online. Last year the game was playable, but unimpressive as it felt like a Warcraft clone with nothing really new, or even very fun about it. But this year, it was a different story. They didn't make me sign a NDA, so I'll tell you everything that happened.

They had 8 stations set up with 4 stations for each team, broken down into Order and Destruction. They had pre-made level 20 characters with some equipment available to test their PVP Battleground-type event (it had a different name, but I forget what it was called). Anyway, they made me pick to be the healer (a goblin shaman), Pepstar was told to be a tank (a black orc) and the other two random guys were both some kind of nuking casters (a magus, I think).

i knew something was a little off with this game and the guys making it when i announced to Pep that I was "just a healer." One of the guys working the booth got offended like I had desecrated a statue of the Emperor and said "NO! YOU ARE NOT JUST A HEALER!" and instructed me in the ways of the greenskin healing philosophy.

The greenskins have a meter called "Waaagh!" and it builds as you do damage and this is independent of the other meter, morale. More on that later). As your "Waaagh!" builds, my shaman's heals grew considerably stronger and spent the accumulated "Waaagh!" This means for optimum healing efficiency, I had to melt faces with a fury that would make Mork and Gork proud. The shaman had one instant cast dot, one lifetap style nuke, and one straight up nuke. My choices were not limited at all in how to build "Waaagh!"

Also, there is a meter that is a lot like a WoW Rogue's combo point meter called Morale. I'm not sure what builds that meter but each "point" has a certain ability tied to it that you can use and spend those points. Pep's black orc got group buffs when she spent morale, my shaman had AE dots, and a group power (mana/energy) restore. You can customize what abilities you put in what morale slot, higher ones being more powerful of course.

There were also six slots dedicated to "tactics." Think of it as like Warcraft's talent system, but customizable on the fly. Each "tactic" takes up between 1-4 slots, and grants various bonuses. There was a large selection available to me, among them were the bonus of filling the "Waaagh!" meter to full when an offensive spell critically hit, 10% damage increase, 20% healing increase, 20% chance for a heal to chain to another ally, 10% chance of heals dispelling a negative effect, 10% chance of nukes dispelling a beneficial effect on an enemy and extra damage for losing the buff, a chance to root on nukes, and a few others I don't remember offhand.

I was told that the interface for tactics selection would be changing shortly and that you could save tactic "sets" for different tasks and switch them with a button click. So you could save one for solo, one for group, one for raiding, one for pvp, one for squig hunting, etc. Also, the tactics you receive would be dynamically assigned based on what you are doing. If you find yourself killing lots of squigs then you could get a +10% damage vs squigs tactic.

Buffs were similar to DAOC, but in order to fight the buffbot plague, they last 60 minutes AND you have to be within range of the caster to keep them.

So, onto the actual action of the battleground. It was a capture the flag type thing in a gully, the entire objective is to hold the flag for as long as possible and win. Whoever has the flag is lit up like a christmas tree with a huge pillar of light that is visible to everyone on the map. "This is Warhammer, you can't hide here!" is what we were told as soon as someone grabbed the flag.

My job consisted of dotting/nuking enemies to build up "Waaagh!" and then dropping heals on Pep and the two magi on my team. When my heals landed, something extraordinary happened. I got special points called "renown." Renown is your game-fame and it builds like experience when you do something worthy of recognition. Healers healing people seems to be worthy of this. I was told that it wasn't finalized yet, but high levels of renown would change how NPCs treat you, it could get you free gear, discounts, special titles, and lots of other things.

On one occasion one of the lamers on the Order team got the idea to attack the healer and I learned something valuable: Players can be taunted in Warhammer. Pep taunted the guy off of me and smashed what was left of his face in while I healed. Several times the Order guys cried "BASHA (Pep) WILL NOT DIE!"

Also, killing players nets you experience. A lot of experience! I was soloing mobs for 100-200 per kill, but in a 4 person group a level 20 player nabbed me 400-600 experience each. Hopefully there'll be pvp gear rewards so you can completely ignore the PVE game if you felt like it.

All in all, it was a pretty enjoyable 15 minutes of domination. At one point we killed all the Order team off and they stopped rushing us. They claimed to be regrouping and came at the four of us at once, and were pretty much shattered instantly by way of one of my shaman's spells called "Aieeee!!" (or something similar) which knocks all enemies around me (and me) back 25 feet.

5. FINALLY, if you're interested in learning about the actual design, rules, etc that will make Warhammer unique, the best place I've found to do this is the video podcasts. #5 and #7 in particular are informative.

 

[derkaderka]

1. The official Warhammer Online site sucks ass. It's ugly and boring, so if you went there, I'm not surprised you weren't impressed. It looks like the kind of site a boring, "smolder with generic rage" type of game would have.

2. Yeah, the graphics are more earth-tone than WoW. This is true of about 80% of the games out there.

It's not that bad, I think.

Not every place in the game is dark.

Another shot that I would argue does not look "dreary".

On the other hand, you have a point about the "flat" textures. Hopefully these are placeholders.​

Also note that they haven't shown anything of the two elven races yet. Elves are known to be pretty fruity-loop.

3. Anyone expecting this game to be robot jesus is going to be disappointed. It's pretty clearly a synthesis between the playability of WoW and the whole realm vs. realm concept of DAoC. It's not going to revolutionize the genre, but if you happen to be someone who enjoys WoW, but prefers Battlegrounds/PvP to raiding, then Warhammer might be for you.

4. Because I find the player accounts of actual playtime to be far more interesting than journalist write-ups, here's something I read over on the Something Awful forums, by a guy named Tabbran, QUOTED IN FULL.



5. FINALLY, if you're interested in learning about the actual design, rules, etc that will make Warhammer unique, the best place I've found to do this is the video podcasts. #5 and #7 in particular are informative.

Sounds like something I'm gonna have to try.

 

[Khatib]

On the other hand, you have a point about the "flat" textures. Hopefully these are placeholders.[/INDENT]

It's a fairly early beta, usually textures are one of the last things they bump up, because they haven't finished optimizing their code for performance yet, and good textures are a huge resource hog. Also you'll notice they don't have shaders on or shadows in yet. That has a huge effect on how "flat" a game looks.

 

[MadMommaMoo]

1. The official Warhammer Online site sucks ass. It's ugly and boring, so if you went there, I'm not surprised you weren't impressed. It looks like the kind of site a boring, "smolder with generic rage" type of game would have.

2. Yeah, the graphics are more earth-tone than WoW. This is true of about 80% of the games out there.

It's not that bad, I think.

Not every place in the game is dark.

Another shot that I would argue does not look "dreary".

On the other hand, you have a point about the "flat" textures. Hopefully these are placeholders.​

Also note that they haven't shown anything of the two elven races yet. Elves are known to be pretty fruity-loop.

3. Anyone expecting this game to be robot jesus is going to be disappointed. It's pretty clearly a synthesis between the playability of WoW and the whole realm vs. realm concept of DAoC. It's not going to revolutionize the genre, but if you happen to be someone who enjoys WoW, but prefers Battlegrounds/PvP to raiding, then Warhammer might be for you.

4. Because I find the player accounts of actual playtime to be far more interesting than journalist write-ups, here's something I read over on the Something Awful forums, by a guy named Tabbran, QUOTED IN FULL.



5. FINALLY, if you're interested in learning about the actual design, rules, etc that will make Warhammer unique, the best place I've found to do this is the video podcasts. #5 and #7 in particular are informative.

Okay NOW I'm more intrigued. I've gone from totally opposed to looking into this game further, to really....well....being a bit interested in it.

I guess I just may need to know a little bit more, and perhaps see it in action eventually. It may just BE my next gaming "love." Looking forward to seeing gameplay videos and whatnot. This might warrant a chance!

 

[AcidCat]

I agree that when it comes to an MMO, environmental aesthetics are important - is this a world I want to live in for a long time? Your comments about the game being bleak and rather depressing are certainly valid concerns. Of course parts of a game like this should be bleak and forbidding, but there should also be a balance to that. WoW does this perfectly, and has an absolutely amazing color palette.

You should check out the upcoming MMORPG The Chronicles of Spellborn if you dig the aesthetics of WoW, it is somewhat similar, with less silliness (no pink haired gnomes riding on robot chickens for example)

 

[Unregistered]

Unfortunately, it's likely to do JUST the opposite. Those whiny brats consider themselves to be very dark, tough, uber leet gamers. They will be drawn to the excessively dark look. Expect TONS of emo kids whining at every turn.

Good luck. Good luck to you all.

Like thoughs wow pvp movies with goth/death metal playing, fast paced WSG rogue action except the toon is a fancy silver haired female nightelf