So a couple months back I posted with my initial thoughts on Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. I figure its time I give a full account of my experiences with WAR and my current status with it. I currently do not play WAR, I cancelled my account a few weeks ago. Somewhere in the middle of my second month of playing I just lost interest.

I ended up playing my main character a ‘Bright Wizard’ into the mid 20s. Enjoying tier 3 content. The game was fun, but there just seems to be something missing. I felt burnt out already by tier 3. How much more fun could tier 4 have been?

Keeps were fun, but repetitive, it took a huge force and decent cooperation from everybody on that force, especially if there were any defenders for the keep.  The influence gains and experience didn’t seem to be worth the time/effort put into taking keeps or defending them. which leads me to Scenarios

Scenarios were fun at first, but also got very repetitive. So much in fact that the opposing faction on my server had started screwing with the scenario queues just to fake the system out so they could get a huge lead on the next scenario. Which made it quite annoying for my side since we would start a scenario, and get kicked from it for unbalanced team sizes, then join into the next scenario and its already been going for 5 min and the opposing faction has a significant lead.

I found a great  guild, and loved playing with those guys. The game was just not what I need in an MMO. Good PvP though, I will give it that. It just didn’t feel much like an MMO to me.

WAR is a PvP oriented MMO with a substantial amount of PvE content as well. From what I’ve seen so far you could play from level 1 to 40 purely PvE or PvP and only ever play one segment of the game. Not that you would want to, there seems to be lots of great content on both sides. I’m enjoying playing equal amounts of PvP and PvE currently.

One thing I don’t get about EA/Mythic is the term ‘RvR’ meaning Realm Vs Realm. They use it like its some crazy new feature, but from what i can tell RvR = PvP in any other game. The “Realms” fight against each other for control of zones and objectives within zones, much like Planetside. Otherwise, its just plain old PvP from any other game that has more than one faction.

In WAR you have “Order” (Dwarfs, Empire, High Elves) vs “Destruction” (Greenskins, Chaos, Dark Elves) and in a RvR portion of a map, you can freely kill people of the other Realm. This is exactly the same as EQ2, with the exception that on a PvP server for EQ2 there are no specific portions of zones that are for PvP, any zone can be PvP freely. EQ you have the Citizens of Freeport (and other cities) that are the ‘bad guys’ and the citizens of Qeynos (and other cities) that are the ‘good guys’ and they fight it out. I’m pretty sure WoW is the same as well.

So unless “RvR” means the addition of fighting for control of zones and objectives, I don’t see a point for it. Granted, I’m still new to the game so there might be something I’m missing. I’ll keep you posted if I find out anything more. As for now as far as I can tell RvR = PvP.

All that said, I’m having a great time playing WAR; I’ve managed to find a good new guild that is growing, with some great people in it, I’ve done some hefty playing and leveled up my character (an Empire Bright Wizard) to rank 16 with a renown rank of 14, I’ve participated in several Battlefield Objective take overs, and even the claiming of a few keeps in Tier 2. I’m excited to play any time I log in, and always have a blast and can’t wait till the next time I get a chance to play.

That’s all for now, stay tuned for more info on WAR as I’m playing my way thru.

And so I present to you:

I really like the Stigma Lashers in the deck, as they are a good way to deal with heavy healing decks, the Power of Fires enhance that ability if I’m unable to attack with the Lashers. The Thunderblusts are great for some hasty damage and the persist makes him even cooler, add in the Incandescent Soulstoke’s ability to throw in elementals, and he can come in a turn earlier and still stick around because of the persist.

Overall I like the quantity and quality of creature destruction in the deck as it allows me to have an answer for a good chunk of creatures, it plays well, and wins fairly often (pending my own mistakes while playing, which can and have cost me games with this deck before.)

Got a lot of stuff, first booster box i’ve opened and not gotten a single duplicate, quite interesting. Now its time to start building some decks.

 I'm super excited to have gotten two planeswalkers, let alone Elspeth! Alas, Shards in general is kind of a let down, there are a few cool cards but the set as a whole just doesn't seem to be up to snuff. Lets hope Conflux fixes that.

I've ordered myself a box of Planar Chaos, and we decided to draft it this weekend, and now i have a ton of new Planar Chaos cards and so now its time to share with you the rares that were pulled from the box.

Turned out to be a very good box of cards, the Damnation I opted to give away for the first place prize in our draft, i'm excited about a lot of the cards in this list, you should be seeing some of them in deck lists soon.

What do I think of RB2 in one word? Awesome

Now for some details…

Characters
RB2 does not import your RB1 characters that you have created, which I think is kind of lame, if you can import the music why can't you import the characters? Especially since there isn't a whole lot of difference in the customization of them. Not that I want all my money and items that I’ve unlocked but the name/hometown and all that start up stuff, it’s all the same why not import them? Aside from that I love the new feature that a character isn't tied to a specific instrument now I can play the drums sing or strum it up without having to re-create myself! Big plus!

Tour Mode
I love that the tour is no longer locked down to multiplayer. You can create a band of one person and still play a tour, and have your friends jump in whenever they are around. Big bonus again! The downside to this is: they removed the single player straight thru the track list mode, which made it easy to unlock every song and know when you've unlocked it all. I still keep randomly unlocking songs in RB2 and I have no idea if I’m even close to the end!

Import RB1 Music
I haven’t done this yet, but it’s a great idea, and I plan to soon. I'm just sad that Enter Sandman won't make it across the journey.

Downloaded Music
All of my previously downloaded music shows up immediately, no work needed - that’s a great feature, good job on this one Harmonix!

New Songs
New songs are always a good thing, there's a ton in here, and I’d argue that on the whole the track list is much better in RB2 than it was in RB1.

I love the new things in RB2 although I wouldn't say it’s quite enough to justify the '2' they could have put a little more into it I think, it’s more of an expansion. The price is great if you think in terms of tracks to dollars. You are getting way more music that $60 would buy you in the music store.

Way to go Maxis..

This game is a lot of fun and has lots to do. I’m about 15% complete with the game, but I’d say I’m about 50% of the way thru the main story (I haven't played too many of the missions yet, which count up for a lot of the total percentage of the game.) The combat is refreshing, and engaging, a little bit like the other FF games, but also nothing like them. I really enjoy the combat.

The story is pretty good so far as well, I really like the character of Zak and see a lot of cloud in him. It’s cool doing things that set stuff up for FFVII. Very enjoyable!

The one thing I’m not too keen on is, the DMW. It’s basically a little slot machine that spins over and over in the corner, it gives you little bonuses in combat, and also controls when you level, as well as when your materia levels. It’s pretty silly - they only way to level is to go into combat enough for the random chance for you to get a level.

Other than that, I think this game is quite nice and I plan to play all the way thru it to 100% and then some. Way to go SquareEnix!

So here I am trying to figure out a way to pick this game up without disturbing the carefully crafted budget of the summer.. when low and behold my father-in-law surprises me with it as an early birthday present! (apparently my obsession had picked up enough attention for my wife to pass the word along.)

Now that I have the SCIV in my possession, and have had a chance to play it for a few hours.. it's time I reveal my true feelings on the game…

AH-MAY-ZING!

This game is EVERYTHING I expected and MORE. It has the standard things you would expect from a Soul Calibur game:

• Fun combat
• Unique Characters
• Cool Weapons
• Horrible Story
• Ring Outs
• Random Guest Characters

 

Then there are a few new things that give the game that little bit more umph:

• Destroyable Armor
• Ultimate Finishing Strikes
• Online Play
• "Tag Team" Style Fighting

I'm sure I’m missing some of it, but seriously - if you have ever enjoyed a Soul Calibur/Edge game you will enjoy this one many times over, if you like a good fighting game - this one will suffice just fine! If you aren't really into the fighting game scene, it can still be fun with some friends around just smashing buttons and trash talking each other.

I highly recommend this game to anybody able to play it.