Thoughts on Warhammer Online

Well, apparently the relase date for Warhammer Online has been announced as September 18th, and I'm honestly not bothered. I've had a changeable and varied relationship with Games Workshop's fantasy franchise which dates back many years.

I used to play the wargame a lot, but I left behind my love for the wargame in my teens, where it was basically a case of whoever bought the newest army was instantly the most powerful.

I did play the RPG a couple of years back and I really loved it, even with it's clunky career system. It was brutal, harrowing and relentless, starting out like D&D but quickly turning into Call of Cthulu. I can remember turning to my GM at one point and asking "I can't understand why my character shouldn't give up in the face of the overwhelming powers arrayed against them." His answer was basically along the lines of "well if you don't, who will?" It was one of the first Fantasy RPGs I played that defined heroics as more than "slaughter a villageload of Goblins, kill the evil wizard and get the treasure."

But the things I loved the RPG for just wouldn't translate into an MMO.
What's basically left is WoW. And yes, I know Blizzard liberally borrow Games Workshop's character designs, but ultimately that kind of nitpicking doesn't matter. If Blizzard made a tabletop wargame with minatures, I'd call it a Warhammer rip-off.

It's also a Wow focussed around PVP which is "Realm vs Realm". At one point it sounded like an interesting notion where each race had their own capital which was locked in a border skirmish with a race on the other faction. Of course, expediency and a desire not to clash with Wrath of the Lich King's immenent arrival has meant that this has been reduced to basically one captial for each faction.

All the races in a faction together from the start? I'm not seeing a gigantic difference to WoW at that point. Then there's the fact that there's 14 playable classes in a PVP-focussed game, each with the requisite three talent trees that have been de rigeur since Diablo 2. Wow has enough problems balancing 9 classes, and I'm not loving EA/Mythic's chances with nearly twice that number.

I'm glad they're getting it out when they are. With a month or two between Warhammer and Wrath of the Lich King, it'll be enough time for some folks to try WAR, get sick of it and come back.