Tome of Knowledge:
I’m not going to go into this too much because it is just so dang broad. Lets just say that it is really cool, keeps track of pretty much everything you have done, keeps statistics on what you have done, and enables you to quest from it all by itself if you so desire. It is not over-rated.
Progression and Leveling:
I’m sure you know by now that the max rank (level) is 40. In very early beta you had a rank 1-4 and a sub level 1-10 (hence 40 levels). But they ditched that early on, thank goodness. You gain experience in many different ways, but mostly through quests. Unlike WoW, I have never completed all the quests and had to resort to “grinding” to eek out that last bit of XP/levels before I can go to the next area. The areas flow one to another very smoothly. You can level via RvR by doing the scenarios over and over and completing/re-completing the same quest over and over, but it seems to get pretty monotonous. Plus, some of the best gear at early levels comes from completeing PQ’s (public quests) and you would miss out on those. There is always plenty of quests to keep you busy in every area you go to.
The only thing I have done that you could count as “grinding” are the PQ’s (public quests). In each chapter of the game there are a couple of Public Quests that you can complete. The PQs progress really fast and very smooth the more people you have doing them. Normally you have to do a single public quest 3-4 times in order to accumulate enough influence points to redeem for your influence rewards back at the camp. But with each attempt you have a chance to win some good loot from the PQ itself, so it is worth it on many levels.
Quest System:
If there is one thing that Mythic got right (and believe me, its way more than one) it is the quest system. You never wonder where you need to go, or what you should be working on. If you played AoC then you get some glimpse of what Mythic has done. But AoC’s was over-done and confusing. Warhammer has stuck a great balance between telling you what to do and where to go without making it sooooo dummy proof that you feel detached from the quests.
When you pick up a quest it adds it to the quest tracker on the right of your screen. It also highlights an area on your minimap and main map telling you generally where to go for the quest. You can hover over your quests on the right and it will tell you clearly just the objective you need to accomplish or you can click it to open your tome of knowledge to read the complete quest details. It really works great, its non-intrusive, and you feel very involved in your quests.
Action Points:
This may be a well known mechanic, but I wanted to make sure that I spelled it out clearly for everyone so that they can understand how it works.
Warhammer Online does not use “mana” or “rage” that you must spend in order to execute your abilities. Instead all Warhammer Online classes use Action Points. Your character has a set amount of Action Points that most actions will use. Once you run out of Action Points, you can’t perform any actions. However, your Action Points replenish pretty quickly (at the same rate in combat or out). This is mostly a mechanic for throttling your “burst” output.
Abilities/Spells:
I also wanted to spell this out for everyone because while it is very similar to WoW it also has some differences. The abilities themselves very much resemble the look and feel of other MMO’s. They have a name, description, and attributes such as casting time, range, cost, etc. The major difference between the Warhammer ability system and the WoW ability system is that you do not buy “ranks” of abilities in Warhammer. In Age of Reckoning you train the ability once and then it gets better and better all by itself as you level. Also unlike WoW you will be training new abilities just about every level (with some exceptions, but you will only be training them one at a time.
One last difference between WoW and Warhammer abilities is that there are very few “utility” abilites in Warhammer. Just about all your abilities will revolve around buffs/debuffs/and damage.
Food and Drink:
There is no food or drink in Warhammer. Since you don’t use “mana” like in WoW you will run out of action points. But action points always come back and within a few seconds of doing nothing, you will have a full action point bar. Health on the other hand currently only returns when you are out of combat. Your health will re-gen very fast once you are out of combat (about as fast as if you had a strong-HoT). However, getting out of combat isn’t as easy as just running away a little bit. You need to remove yourself from the battle aways and then hang tight while your combat flag clears.
There are potions in Warhammer (they have a 60 second timer) but other than that, there is no way to replenish your own health while in combat (unless you are a healer.) I would like to see a bandaging system, but potions are pretty readily available and come in a variety of uses especially if you have the apothecary crafting skill.
Other than potions, there are no other food or drink options currently implemented.
Class “Paths”:
Every class in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning has three “paths” that a class can choose from to more fully specialize your character. Starting at level 10 you will gain points that you can put into your class’s paths any way you see fit until you have a total of 25 points to spend at level 40. You can also re-specialize your point allocation at a later time. (I presume this will have a cost by the time the game goes live.)
So far this pretty much sounds just like WoW “talent trees” right? Well here is how they are different.
Each path is associated with 3-6 different core class abilities. Each time you put points into a path the abilities associated with that path get more potent. This means that you can put your points into the path that contains the abilities that you find your playstyle using the most.
Each path also contains various tactics, skills, and morale abilities, that you can unlock as you put more and more points into that tree. As you would expect, the deeper the tactic/skill/ability is in the tree, the more powerful it is. You can choose to pickup these skills as you unlock them by spending a point on it, or just continue past it. You can also choose to spread your points across multiple trees and pickup the skills that are lowest on those trees.
One of the biggest differences between WHO “paths” and WoW “trees” is that the paths are not class defining at all. They simply add flavor to your class and your play style. Just because you put all your points into one tree doesn’t mean you will no longer be able to heal/tank/dps as your class should.
Tactics:
Tactics are one of my favorite mechanics introduced in Warhammer Online. Tactics are passive buffs that you can put on your character. These “buffs” are always active and can not be removed or dispelled.
There are a range of tactics that suit what you are currently doing in the game. There are tactics that best suit RvR, there are some that are really best for PvE, some that are best for soloing, etc. You can pick and choose which tactics you want to have on depending on what you are doing at the moment.
Example: I am going to be doing some tanking right now, so I will want to use the “aggro” tactic that will make my attacks generate extra aggro. Later, I will be doing some RvR so I want to use the “10% chance to gain speed increase for 7 seconds” tactic.
How are tactics “used”? Every 10 levels you will gain ONE tactic slot (you also have a class tactic and you can buy renown tactics later) so you will have 4 slots at level 40. You will buy/earn or otherwise gain a collection of tactics as you progress through the game. You can put whatever tactics you want into your slots, but you can only have those tactics active at a time which means you will have to make some decisions.
One of the most useful things about tactics is that you can setup up-to 5 different tactic configurations that you can swap to whenever you are out of combat. This makes switching roles during your game play much more effective and fun.
Once again, these tactics are not class defining, but add that extra flavor that makes your play style work for you.
Morale:
Another really fun part of your character is the morale abilities. You will collect morale abilities as you level or from the path you choose. These are special moves/skills/abilities/spells that you can execute to perform some pretty impressive things. Morale abilities are typically very powerful and you can have up to 4 different abilities available for use, one for each morale tier.
As you fight (RvR or PvE) you will slowly build “morale”. You have a morale meter that will slowly fill on your screen. When your meter reaches 25% your Tier 1 morale ability will become available for use. You can choose to execute that ability (which will drain all your morale) or let your morale continue to build. Your tier 2 ability will be available at 50%, tier 3 at 75%, and tier 4 at 100%. The higher the tier, the more powerful the ability.
Morale abilities are most certainly not class defining. They tend to add the very occasional “wow” ability to your game play. Most importantly they can turn the tide of a battle when used effectively.
Area of Effect:
ALL classes have various AoE abilities. Some have more and some have less but every class has some. They range from escape type AoE (like spells that knock your opponents one way and you the other) to ranged nuke AoE that does massive damage.
Tank Taunts:
I have seen taunts go through a few stages but I really like their place now. Taunts serve two purposes:
- Force a monster to attack you for a certain amount of time.
- While taunted you do 30% more damage to the target.
This means that Taunts are useful in PvE AND RvR.
Death:
What happens when you die? Good question! Death in Warhammer is intentionally not very painful. The biggest penalty is that you are removed from combat for a period of time. This is a great thing (especially for melee classes) because you are going to die a lot in RvR. Here is what happens when you die.
- You get a window stating you have died. There is a respawn button and timer. When the timer runs out, you will be auto respawned (not sure if the timer is there in PvE instances or not.)
- You respawn at the closest friendly camp. There are as many as 3-5 camps on each map, this means you normally don’t have to run too far. If you die in an RvR battle zone (there is one on each map) then you are respawned at your warcamp. There is at least one warcamp for each faction (order and destruction) that boarders right on the RvR area.
- All your buffs/debuffs are removed and you have a penalty placed on you for about 10 minutes. This debuff reduces your health by X%, and the percentage increases each time you are killed with the debuff on.
You may then continue off into battle. Don’t forget to re-buff!
Mounts:
You can purchase mounts in Warhammer Online at level 20. They are currently 30 gold. Currently, getting 30g by level 20 would be cake. But that may change or the price may go up. I’ll let you know if I see that change.
Right now there is ONE mount for each race. There are no level 40 mounts that I have seen. The mounts increase movement speed by 50% and are mostly like WoW mounts (cant use indoors, cant use abilities on them, an item in your backpack you “use” to jump on, etc.) Currently, in order to summon your mount you click the mount in your inventory/hotbar which causes your character to pull out a horn which he/she blows. Then there is a poof of dust and you are on your mount. Its about a 3 second cast.
Here are the types of mounts available to each race:
Dwarf - Helicopter: Prolly my least favorite mount. Just my opinion.
Empire - Brown Horse: Typical brown horse with a saddle. Meh.
High Elf - White Horse: Fancy white horse with no saddle. Fits the elves nicely.
GreenSkin (Orc) - Warthog: The black orc looks way bigger than the hog. But it has a rather fitting look to it.
GreenSkin (Gob) - Wolf: A dark gray mean looking wolf. Looks perfect.
Chaos - Black Horse: An evil looking thick black horse with red eyes.
Dark Elves - Raptor: A hugh red/purple raptor with barding. It looks WAY too big so it makes you really stand out. The constant and quick sound it makes when it runs (thud thud) gets anoying real fast.
Travel:
This isn’t really a character mechanic, but I wanted to spell it out because it seemed to go along with mounts. Your mode of travel will mostly be foot for the first number of levels. However, once you arrive at your first warcamp you will meet a flight master. A flight master is available in EACH warcamp. When you choose to take a flight to somewhere you will be taken to a “cut scene” which will show your character get on a dragon (Destruction) or a helicopter (Order) and fly off into the sunset. After a loading screen you appear already landed at your destination.
I would like take this moment to point out that this feature must not be completely implemented. Currently the UI for choosing your destination is very clumsy and bland (just some black boxes with names of locations in them) and you can fly to all (but only) the areas currently being tested in that beta push. I am not sure if you can fly to anywhere you want once the game goes live. I’m not sure if you need to have visited your destination first. I’m not sure if there will be different flying mounts that take you. I’m not sure what the UI will look like. I’m not sure if the cost (yes there is one) for each trip will stay the same.
Currently it’s pretty clumsy and I’m sure it will be improved/changed before launch.
Gear:
I don’t want to do a complete review of the gear system at this time. But I do want to point out its highlights and how it works.
Gear Quality:
Gear has the exact same quality system as WoW. Grey (unusable), White (usable, no stats), Green (good item with stats), Blue (rare item with stats), Purple (epic item with stats).
Armor Sets:
There are armor sets and they work exactly like WoW. 3 pieces of X set give Y bonus. 5 pieces give Z bonus.
Gear bonuses:
Green level and better have additional stats on the item that provide a constant buff to your base stats. I have yet to see an item that “procs” or gives of some other benefit other than stats, but this doesnt mean they dont exist.
Binding:
When you use any green level item, or higher, it binds to you. This means you can’t re-sell it or give it away. This is very similar to WoW. The difference is that Bind on Pickup items seem to be restricted to quest rewards (incuding public quests). I have found rare (even epic) items and was able to trade them, no problem.
Who can wear it:
Almost all gear in the game is usable only by the specific class that it is meant for. The item has a “Career” tag on it and only that class can use that item. This makes many things easier. Normally I take the items I find and look for someone near by to give them to. Once the game goes live, and money means something, I will be keeping all this stuff and putting it on the acution house.
Gear Benefits:
Gear makes a difference, period. The better your gear, the better you will do. However, I feel that the gear makes less difference than it does in current day WoW. As a test, I once took off all my gear except for my epic axe and ran into RvR. I died more than normal, but it was doable. So, gear is going to be important for sure, but it is not as completely lop-sided as modern day WoW.
Grouping:
I know that this will be a big question on people’s minds: how will the class I choose be accepted in groups?
I honestly haven’t done much in the way of instanced PvE testing, so it is hard for me to speak about that. However, I can confirm the following things:
- You are going to group a lot (see open groups below)
- Tanks are important in PvE and RvR. In PvE they are almost always required unless you have enough healing. (My Disciple of Khaine has in fact tanked a PQ boss here and there, but only with lots of healing.) In RvR they are important because they can be up front keeping the other side busy and keeping you protected.
- Healing is important. In most PvE any healing class will do fine (warrior priest, DoK, shaman, runeprist, archmage, zealot) and this is mostly true in RvR too. There are cases where your warrior priest and DoK just plain wont cut it for healing and something more is needed.
- DPS is important. I have seen a group of tanks and healers get steam rolled by a big group of DPS. Besides, just about all classes have some form of real DPS.
- There are 6 slots in each group. This means that in PvE if one slot is taken by a tank and another taken by a healer, there are still 4 more slots for DPS.
- Honestly, group composition didn’t matter too much so far. What really matters is people doing their jobs. I’m not certain this will always be the case, but that is the way it has been in Warhammer for me so far.
Open Groups:
Any time you create a group in Warhammer, it is an “open” group by default. This means that anyone can invite themselves into your group. Of course you can close your group if you like, but this is a really neat feature because people doing quests (like public quests) in an area can easily group for the best results. Finding open groups in your area is really simple and you will even be alerted that there are open groups near you when you enter a new area. It’s a great system and works really well.
If you need additional help, don’t miss the Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning guide!
Even tho the game is still in beta, scheduled to be released next month, players are already rampaging the realms and discovering great strategies and secrets behind the game. I had the chance of snagging this guide early, and it’s pretty good.
