Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR) has opened the floodgates once again for another Preview Weekend. This time around Mythic has gotten creative and chosen a catchy title: Preview Weekend +.
I had the chance to log in for a few minutes before heading into work and I have to admit I was absolutely stunned by the progress that Mythic has made on WAR. The game was already good to begin with, but Mythic has gone and kicked it up a notch.
First and foremost, the NPC AI and pathing issues are fixed. Everything worked great and only once did I run into an NPC that seemed a bit flaky. Even then, it was not the "deer in headlights" look of the past Preview Weekend.
Again, the starter areas were flooded with hundreds of players and once again, I had absolutely no latency or graphical lag.
Next on the hit list was combat responsiveness. Mythic did not disappoint. The cast bar is fixed. The UI responsiveness is fixed. The 0.3 second slop timer that was added works perfectly. Overall, combat in WAR is where it needs to be.
So far, no crash to desktops and no one stating that they were having any.
Overall, every single Con from my original Preview Weekend Pro/Con list has been tackled. The only one not tackled was the Shadow Warrior hotbar reset, which was just a misunderstanding on my part on how the Shadow Warrior stances worked.
For informational purposes, the Preview Weekend + is running on WAR Patch 4.1 . I am playing on Chrace as Heartless the Bright Wizard.
That is great to here. Look forward to seeing the improvements.
ReplyDeleteYou evil tease!
ReplyDeleteI have to wait until Open Beta on Sunday *grumbles*
Have the graphics been turned up? Or is it still mud.
ReplyDeleteI look at the game right now and would expect no graphics lag.
I want to know they have turned on the textures and that it is not lagging.
**Expects Sunday to be good according to all of the fan noise!
Textures have been fixed, the muddiness is gone. New sliders have been added as well, but I can't confirm their effects as I haven't tested all of them.
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for the concise answer.
ReplyDeleteNow, I am excited for Sunday!
I agree with most of your post (lots of big improvements), but there are still a lot of bugs to do with mobs (not pathing this time though!), and I still feel combat could be a LOT more fluid. I still really dig the game, despite my criticism.
ReplyDeleteI agree anon that it isn't "perfect" yet, but it is nothing short of exactly what they needed to fix to make this PW+ a huge success. Rolling into OB, I foresee a lot more positive feelings for the game.
ReplyDeleteCombat is fluid IMHO, but again there are a couple bugs that throw the perception off. Like combat animations playing even when skills are locked out or targets are out of range/LOS.
I finally got a chance to play yesterday. Tell my why the game feels old?
ReplyDeleteBTW I fully intend to play when it comes out the 18th.
I gave it a go, and I just cannot feel it.
ReplyDeleteGuess it just does not work for me, and maybe the MMO standards are just not my cup of tea anymore.
And when I reupp AoC and have more fun, seems something is wrong overall with how WAR plays...
Wonder what the issue is.
I will admit that AoC has the "flash in the pants" effect, that is to say it catches you off the bat. It doesn't last very long though. About only 1/4 of AoC is finished. Fortunately, I saw that in beta and knew when they announced the release date that AoC was going to be a one-month wonder before the problems started showing through.
ReplyDeleteWAR catches new players, but for a few players like Open, they are just done with the entire diku-inspired model.
For those of us actually still interested in games like WAR, it is a hell of a lot of fun from the get go. Even more fun when we ignore what WoW has taught so many of us. Bonus points for actually socializing and interacting, something I notice a lot of players failing to do.
I played quite a bit this weekend and got "Target is unattackable" enough times that I can't say all of the NPC AI issues are fixed and there aren't problems. Still, it was a small thing when taken along with all of the RvR awesomeness.
ReplyDelete