Filed under: Warhammer: Age of Reckoning
March has been a pretty bland month on the gaming front for me. I’ve been quietly plugging away at WoW and enjoying the comradery of my old guild members, yet I’m increasingly disenfrachised with the same grind that soured me on the game over a year ago. I’ve stopped following news about the titles “on the horizon” after a year plus of delayed releases, fluffy spin, and assorted other forms of corporate cockteasing.
When I got an e-mail informing me of the details of the Warhammer: Age of Reckoning Collector’s Edition, I was cynical. But I’m a sucker who’s easily amused. And Mythic is packing the collector’s edition with all the things one might expect from a Games Workshop product:
1) An exclusive greenskin miniature. A neat bonus for hobbyists who will soon be making the leap from the tabletop to the computer screen.
2) A graphic novel. Warhammer lore is rich, and the artistic style of the game is gorgeous. This is a great way to indoctrinate those new to the license into the colorfully dark world that awaits them. I’m also a huge comic book fan, so I’m sold on this perk.
3) In-game bonuses: A libram that’ll give you a temporary XP bonus, some additional quests, special titles, and 12 unique-to-the-collector’s edition, customized head options for your characters. Nothing particularly alluring here in my opinion–except for the extra customization options. I’m a sucker for character customization. A few extra vanity options are enough to make me happy. So much of the tabletop game is focused on painting and customizing figures, so this is another way Mythic can translate the spirit of the original game to the MMORPG.
All this comes at a hefty pricetag (a little under $80 American). Worth it? Hard to say. Did I preorder? Yup. Got my tax return back from the feds and figured I might as well treat myself to something frivolous. Besides, the latest Online Gamer’s Anthology look back at Dark Age of Camelot has gotten me amped up for what Mythic might have in store for us.
This said, I can’t say the collector’s edition seems worth the pricetag for your average gamer who’s interest might be peaked by WAR, but it does do everything a collector’s edition should do and throws some salvageable bones to devoted Waah!heads.
Over the past few months, debates have been popping up around the gaming blogosphere prompted by PvEers excited about the promise of meaningful PvP in Warhammer “even though they don’t normally like PvP” and PvPers concerned–and legitimately so–that they don’t want to see WAR watered down for the carebears.
I think many PvPers like to paint a picture of PvEers as geriatric pen-and-paper role-players too squeamish and atrophied from years of playing EQ to take on anything but sluggish, scripted AI adversaries. But this is not the case.
Look at the RPG in it’s purest form: Dungeons and Dragons. The RPG is simply a communal way of interactive storytelling. This is something sorely lacking in MMO PvP.
I enjoy PvP, but it gets awfully boring awfully quickly in its current state. The old school gamers who level criticism at LoTRO and WoW for not having “enough risk” should turn their attentions to PvP rather than shunning it. I personally think it’s laughable to use the word “risk” when we’re talking about computer entertainment, but engaging in combat with other players delivers a sense of excitement that corpse runs or real time travel–no matter how long–ever will.
We play MMOs because other players add a wonderful sense of life to the worlds we inhabit online. Good PvP IS good PvE because both ideally involve participating in an engaging story, having an impact on the virtual world we’re playing in, and working with others towards a shared goal.
It’s the current state of MMORPGs that fuel these divisions between the camps because in most every game after Ultima Online, PvP and PvE are mutually exclusive (WoW) or PvP is totally pointless (V:SoH).
If PvP is implemented in a more creative way than me getting griefed for no reason by some immature jackass venting his poxy teenage angst–or me mindlessly grinding out honor for gear rewards, numb to the ultimate outcome of the battle–that’d be a healthy baby step. And if there were implications for the ganker and the gankee–both good and bad, now that’d make things interesting.
Okay, worst play on words ever. But just as I was about to call it a week, what should show up in my mailbox but the latest monthly newsletters from both Age of Conan and Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. Aside from the usual spin, hype-building, and non-information, there’s some stuff worth looking at in both publications.
The AoC newsletter provides some further detail on their mounted combat system that looks very promising. The WAR newsletter reveals another ‘hubba-hubba’ dark elf career (the sorceress) along with a beta update and some concept art for their own mounts (dwarf ale powered mount for the win!) Enjoy your weekend.
