A tale of two gamers

Two of Atomic's biggest MMO nerds get their geek on about the state of massively multiplayer gaming.

DH: I’ve made the decision. As much as I loved – and I mean thoroughly enjoyed – Warhammer Online when it worked, I recently cancelled my subscription. There’s just too many other games, and on top of that, the new Lord of the Rings Online expansion has just hit my hard drive, and boy is it rocking. How are you finding WAR – still digging it?

JM: I’m still digging War despite the bite sized flaws surrounding it. It’s obviously expansion season in the MMO world, because I’ve had to devote some time to the latest EverQuest 2 expansion myself, but it hasn’t torn me away from War. I class them as two completely different games loosely associated by genre. Very loosely. Think Pamela Anderson loose, and you’re there. So why didn’t WAR keep you hooked? It’s a Player-versus-Player dreamland! Not your thing?

DH: Man, that’s loose!

You’re right, it’s PvP excellence, no doubt. But as much as laying the smack down on Chaos Warriors is a joy unto itself, I’m also a long term fan of the Warhammer world. I’ve wargamed and roleplayed in that background for more years than I’d like to count, and it just felt like the world I’d come to know so well had been… watered down a bit. Plus, trying to find a properly populated Roleplaying server, so that there’s enough players to make the awesome PvP actually happen was bit of a challenge. In the end, as much as there was a lot of like about WAR, there just wasn’t quite enough to keep me hooked. And, as I said, the new Mines of Moria expansion is just too good to ignore.

Speaking of which, how is EverCrack these days?

JM: It’s odd, isn’t it - that the core appeal of Warhammer isn’t for the fans who’ve carefully nurtured the Warhammer universe, characters, factions and conflicts, but for those who really are just after a Warhammer ‘skin’ to a PvP MMO. Fortunately, War does the latter so damn well that I’m still happy to see Mythic suck monthly withdrawals from my credit account. War is watered down, that’s for sure – but I think for you it might be a case of incompatibility between user and game.

War takes the MMORPG, amputates the RPG and leaves the MMO intact sprinkled with an emphasis on action. I’m strangely hungry now.

Roleplaying servers are – by and large – the oddity of the MMO world. Ordinary gaming folk see a ‘Roleplaying’ server in EverQuest 2 or Warhammer Online and immediately concoct vicious ideas in their heads of a game world festering with an ‘I live in the basement’ population. Roleplaying servers are fated to be lower population when stacked up against normal servers. On a standard ‘Core’ ruleset Warhammer server however population isn’t an issue and the gamers online are in tune with the concept of Mythic’s small slice of War. As far as a pure PvP game with a global population is concerned, Warhammer has the perfect mix of balance, class diversity and engaging scenarios to make it worth my bucks. Realm-Versus-Realm needs some major tweakage, but nothing insurmountable.

Anyway, EverQuest 2 is going marvellously, in my books it’s the gourmet meal to World of Warcraft’s ‘Cheeseburger’ approach. Incredibly rich landscape, intricate storyline, lots of classes and races and a 3D engine that was designed back in 2005 to run on 512MB GPUs that didn’t even exist then – it’s aged well. The latest expansion (seems to be the season huh?) doesn’t raise the level cap, but extends the ability to tailor individual skills and abilities of your characters, plus chucking in a generous helping of new zones, dungeons and raids, most of which I’m yet to touch. So what would it take to bring you back to Warhammer? Something? Anything? Or have you put down your Elvish blade for the last time?