One of the great things about the holiday season, aside from the hustle and bustle of activities (typically involving malls and a lot of credit cards, and food) is that there’s a pretty great selection of festive activities to enjoy in game. Not only that, but a lot of games are offering a welcome back promotion of some sort. WoW offered me 10 free days, EQ2 has activated old accounts until the 31st of December, LotRO has a welcome back weekend currently running, and WAR also offered me 10 days to return to the game and check out the changes. WAR was one of those games that I enjoyed playing, but not enough to want to pay monthly for it. I love pvp and I enjoyed the thrill of battle, but there wasn’t enough ‘other stuff’ to keep me playing. I don’t enjoy pvp ALL of the time (I don’t enjoy any one thing ALL of the time, which is probably why I play so many games).
That being said, it’s a beautiful game, and I never disliked it. It just didn’t have enough ‘umph’ to keep me playing. I’m not above taking advantage of promotions to see changes, and of course I dragged a friend with me because everything is better when you’re playing with someone else.
It didn’t take any time at all to patch, and when I logged in the first thing I was greeted with (once I’d created a character) was a “changes since last time you have logged in” screen – which is a VERY SMART IDEA. I wish other games took note of this and implemented the same sort of feature. Some key notes based on the last time you’ve logged in that will show on the screen and remind you of all of the wonderful new features that you should be taking advantage of. Fantastic attention to detail, and I (as a player) like that.
One of the changes since I played last, is there’s a new tutorial area. In fact I was so out of the loop I didn’t have any idea there was this area, and figured that myself and my friend would have to create the same race in order to start together. Turns out, that’s not the case any more. The starter area was bustling with players, probably because of the new ‘unlimited’ trial that allows you to play Tier 1 for as long as you’d like. I play Order on Badlands, and Destruction on Gorfang. The highest character I have is level 12. I love playing healers, and my archmage, but there’s no way I would be able to just jump right back into the game knowing where I left off (it’s been months) so I created a ranged melee type character. Like every tutorial, the starter area introduces you to the game and puts you into WAR head first. Before level five you’ve already experienced your first public quest and are gaining reputation. I always enjoyed the fact that there were multiple methods of ‘leveling’ in WAR, through public quests, battlegrounds, and PvE (even if the pve was lacking at times).
It was starting to get late so I didn’t get very far, I think I logged off at level four or so, but it was fun. It was a little confusing and overwhelming trying to understand and remember all of the commands and what everything did, but that’s true for every game, and the fact that I play so many just compounds this because I have to remember commands and keys for not just a few games, but closer to 15 different games at any one time. Typically I go through and bind everything I can so it all matches one game, or I spend hours trying to figure out the basics (like hiding my UI so I can take a screen shot, or auto attacking).
I’m looking forward to continuing my adventures through WAR. Will I subscribe after my 10 days are up? Well. I haven’t decided yet. There’s a good chance I just might. It depends on my schedule though and whether or not I think I can justify the cost with work gaming + play gaming. In the mean time, I’m just going to enjoy.
I went back along with my son and nephew but we didn’t stay. What I liked before was still enjoyable – PQs, Scenarios and the classes. Unfortunately, what I didn’t like was more glaring having played Aion – combat can get sluggish and out of sync, bad mob-pathing/AI, lag in larger force RVR and targeting it still awkward where the key mapped to select a target sometimes doesn’t work without pounding it several time.
I wanted to like WAR. I hope this promotion brings them more players. I’d like to see them maintain enough of a following to fix the game and continue delivering more content.
You are doing what I am doing (guess that is why I am commenting so much here as well). I needed to load up so many games since I left my game of choice.
I have WAR loaded thanks to the “Unlimited” 10 level trial and I came away impressed actually.
The visuals (especially the new update adding HDR and Post Processing) makes the world shiny. Combat is quite easy to get into.
As to mapping commands, I always have an extra step as I play on a 360 controller, and must map certain features for the game. I usually rate a game well if it maps nicely to the controller.
WAR was just such a game. Works nicely with targeting and skills and access to the Tome, etc.
I will play more after my EQ2 time is up I think.
Cheers