In a last ditch effort to lose myself in Warhammer, I devoted my first day of thanksgiving break to the game. Tuesday afternoon, starting at around 2, I entered the Sudikoff gaming lab (known to others as the comp-sci lab) with the intention of playing until I had a new insight on the game.
My gaming experience began with frustration. Our team had decided to again switch servers to a more populated server. The authorities were advertising the option to transfer your characters, so I followed the steps they had outlined. However, no matter how hard I tried, I could not figure out how to get it to work. After a half an hour of repeating their instructions, I decided that I would just restart from the beginning. Strike one against Warhammer.
After deliberation, I decided to continue the path of a greenskin Shaman. Although I'd already become disenchanted with my other shaman, I was hoping that restarting with a better understanding of the game would perhaps allow me to speed my way through the early boring stages. Likewise, I already had pretty good knowledge of the Shaman's low level skills, so I figured that I would be able to quest and battle more competantly than my level would suggest.
Once in the gameworld, I went questings in an attempt to quickly gain some levels. I moved from the starting goblin town to the first main town, and quickly gained two levels doing so. Once I got to the main town, I began joining RvR scenarios. I'd found the RvR scenarios much more entertaining than questing as a way of leveling up, and they also provided the opportunity to interact with other players. I probably played 10-15 RvR's over the next few hours, primarily the "Wrath of Khaine" and "Gates of Ekrund" maps. During the down times between the scenarios, I would complete small quests and work on my skills. I'd decided soon after starting to play that I wanted to investigate manufacturing skills, since they provided ways to "level" other than through experience. I choose talisman crafting and scavenging as my two skills; scavenging provided a good way to gather materials, and talisman crafting simply sounded cool.
Soon enough, the battles I was joining ceased to interest me. As a low level healing character, I couldn't really hold my own. Likewise, there's only so much variety when you're battling the same enemies on the same map, over and over again. I began simply using the battles as a way to level up my scavenging skill. I would join the scenario late, run to the battleground, and loot the bodies. It was sort of gruesome, but I got a lot of cool items and materials. When I thought that I had gathered enough talisman parts, I stopped joining RvR's to focus on leveling my crafting skill. Unfortunately, I found the crafting to be as unenjoyable as the battling. I had been hoping that Talisman crafting would allow me to make cool amulets, rings, or equipment, but instead I simply made gaudy baubles. My options were between three different baubles, which would either improve willpower, strength, or intellegence by one for 30 minutes. It seemed to me a pretty pointless benefit, so I simply sold my materials and baubles, and went exploring.
Probably the best part of Warhammer is the graphics. The world is beautifully wrought, full of mountains, rivers, trees, and empty spaces. It really comes across as a massive land full of emptiness. In contrast with WoW, the Warhammer world has very little "life" to it. WoW is full of neutral critters, bandits, and even townspeople going about their lives. I think it's the lack of alternate story lines that makes Warhammer feel so empty. When I played WoW, there were always NPC's who would ask you to find things they'd lost, bring them materials, or exact revenge for them. In Warhammer, the entire game is focuses on the war. Even outside of the RvR scenarios, there are huge battlefields that lie empty. In the towns, even in the capital city, there is no civilian presence. The war is all that matters in the world; daily life has no presence. In theory, a game focused on one huge war could be fun. However, with such low populations (and I don't think there will ever be large enough populations to fill the immense, empty battlefields in-game) even the feeling of war is lost. Walking across empty battlefields littered with broken standards and debris, it doesn't feel like you're in a war, it feels as if you've missed out on the entire war.
To continue my story, I left the goblin town intent on seeing as much of the gameworld as I could. Knowing that I'd likely find myself in places where I was far too low level, I was reduced to sneaking through the world. I walked across a battlefield, crawled through a cave, and found myself on another empty battlefield. Crossing the new battlefield, I found myself in a snowy world behind enemy lines. NPC dwarves guarded a broken castle; they were failing miserably at defending it though, seeing as I had no trouble staying exploring the place behind their back. I found myself seeing the potential of the place, if players from both sides deemed it interesting enough to fight over. However, finding it empty of anything to interest me, I left to find my way back to goblin land. Rather than head back through the cave, I walked south on the new map, knowing approximately where the nearest goblin base was. I found and fought some cool trolls on the way, but otherwise saw no sign of life, either player or AI.
When I arrived back in my own lands, I had lost any inspiration that I'd had for playing. I'd been playing about 5 hours by now, had gained several levels and seen a good chunk of the map (the goblin starting map, not the world). However, most of it had been a struggle just to keep myself playing. Though the scenery was beautiful, it felt so unreal that I was unable to become engrossed in it. I found myself jumping off cliffs for a period of time, just to see if I could survive the fall. Eventually, I decided it wasn't worth it and logged off.
What did I learn from my experience with the game? I think it's visually and theoretically appealing, but doesn't have the potential to ever be an engrossing game. Why do I think that? What does it lack, and what does that tell me about games in general?
First of all, Warhammer is empty. Not just empty of real people, but empty of fake people too. Warhammer has no existance besides the battle. The war is simply for the sake of war; the warriors go to battle not to defend their way of life and their loved ones, but simply because they have nothing else to do. For me, that sums up the entire experience well; I play not for a reason, but simply because there's nothing else to do.
Secondly, Warhammer lacks the main elements of an RPG; character development and item gathering. Warhammer's character development offers doesn't allow characters to personalize their character. Oh, players can die their characters clothes different colors and choose their characters face, but functionally, characters development is already set. Each time you level up, one new skill becomes available. Instead of having to choose what to specialize in, players get everything. There's not even real choice about which abilities to use; for the Shaman, the most recent attack and healing spells were always far and away the best, making any other choice of skill silly. This lack of choice is obvious in equipment as well. In all the time that I played, I don't think there was a single time where an enemy dropped an item I wanted to use. Good items were always purchased from the NPC's, and came available through accumulation of "renown points;" a process eerily similar to leveling up. Likewise, there was never any choice in what equipment. Instead of having two or more fairly equal options, equipment always had obvious options. For example, by gaining a new level of renown, and thereby opening new items at the vendor, I was faced by this choice. One of the new items was a ring, almost identical to the one that I had bought at a lower level of renown, except that it offered greater bonuses to each attribute. By "renowning up," it was as though I'd basically just added those attribute points. This formula was repeated over and over again for all my items. Equipping my character was as simple as gaining levels in renown, walking to the vendor, and purchasing the next level of gear.
In the end, I failed to connect to my character at all. It felt as though the only choices I'd actually made about him were his skin color, face color, and name. Otherwise, every change that happened seemed scripted. There was a very clear path laid out for my experience, and it would be difficult and pointless to step off the beaten path. I had the same difficulty connecting to the game world, for similar reasons. Instead of being engrossing, with places to explore and experiences to have, the game world felt like a scripted battle. Instead of being a beautiful world corrupted by war, it feels like a beautiful war, fought for no reason.
(I will note that there was a back-story to the game, which gives reasons for the war. The story is slowly revealed to the character as you explore. However, the story was clearly written after the creation of the world, instead of vice versa, meaning that the plot and story seems like silly propaganda, instead of a justifiable reason to fight.)
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