Warhammer Online

[Leper_Kahn]

Anyone in the beta?

Anyone want to get in the beta?

I personally would love for it just to come out. I don't really want to play with a ton of bugs and having to report on my progress.

[Konig]

Funny how it works, eh?

I signed up for the Beta a while back & haven't heard anything.

I really like the setting, the versatility of classes, and the general style. I like the idea that as you level, you physically change: Orcs get bigger, broader and meaner looking; Dwarves get more impressive beards; Chaos gets more vile/mutated... etc. I'm not sure if they kept this, but it seems like an excellent motivation to level. Some guy walks over a hill, and you know just at a glance that he's a mean futhamucker.

All that being said, it's an MMORPG that isn't taking great leaps and strides away from where things were 15 years ago. Set classes, level from 1 to X, kill Y things Z times to gain exp. It looks like it's a solid implementation, but in the end, it's liable to boil down to the same patterns of older games.

It's not a good era for MMO's right now. The current MMO breakdown consists of:
WoW, which is a game that's popular not because of excellent game design, but marketing. It's inevitably the standard to which other modern MMOs (And 4th edition D&D) are compared, but it's a faulty assumption because there's barely anything in WoW that's particularly innovative... so other games are compared to a game with a big budget & millions of fans. Of course they fall short - it's like trying to compare a new religion with Christianity in the southern states.
Guild Wars, which was my game of choice due to the fact that it challenged the standards of Online RPG design. No grind, no questing for that .01% drop rate, accessible, flexible PvP and no subscription. After 30 months, the gameplay eventually broke down (re: added grind, added .01% drop items, ruined PvP & a 'pay or you don't get this free content' scam.), culminating in an underwhelming 'expansion pack' (re: $60 for 8 hours of gameplay) and an admission from the game developers that they were giving up on it & working on a 'GW2' for 2009.
Everquest, which is basically like WoW in every way, except it falls short in some aspects. Not even really on the radar.
City of Heroes, which features innovative, flexible character creation, and then the same old grind that you see in other MMOs.
A half dozen american MMORPGs with companies trying to make the next big MMO, and failing because of a lack of budget & memberbase. (DAOC, Fury, matrix online).
Dozens upon dozens of korean MMORPGs that all boil down to the same thing.

I'd like to be able to say that the way is clear for a really well designed game to just thrive... but then the cynic in me thinks about Star Wars Galaxies and Guild Wars... where you get thousands of idiots screaming for things they don't really want, and the game developers caving & screwing up their own game.

I'll definitely be snagging any free trials for WAR, because I think it looks really fantastic and fun. I don't think I'll be jumping on the boat just yet, though, because I've yet to see a situation where a company didn't release a shoddy MMO from the outset, or screw it up a few months/years down the line.

[Ominous]

You forgot Eve Online. I find it to be a refreshing change from the same old, same old.