It's hard to argue with you, Venekor. I think WAR has improved immensely since its launch, but I can't see it getting over the hump to become a genuinely excellent game given its foundations. Not to mention the fact that for every improvement which adds to the enjoyment, the constant loss of population reduces the enjoyment - can't have a fun PvP game without people to fight with and against.

I'm with Claw I think the game has improved MASSIVELY both because of what I hear from friends and because I've replayed tier one with the new unlimited trial.

But the fact that 80 people are getting cut from the team......... bodes really really bad, almost enough for me to give them a sympathy subcription.

I actually really like the combat mechanics, other than the still-overpowered AoE (but that's more of a balance/numbers issue rather than an issue of core mechanics) and the game performs a thousand times better than it did even a couple of months ago, both in terms of framerates and server responsiveness.

But I do agree that the game lacks what it needs to be competitive as a true mmo: the questing areas are dull and lifeless, and literally walk you down a set path complete with sequentially numbered quest hubs and markings on the map that point out where to go for each quest, effectively eliminating the need for any quest text at all. Also, there just isn't a story going on. I've been playing WAR off and on since beta and I can't name a single significant figure in the game's story. There's a solid setting, but essentially no characters or plot advancement within that setting.

However, I don't feel that WAR is a bad game, despite my immense frustration with the current all city siege, all the time state. What I do think is that Mythic failed from the start to understand exactly what type of game they were building. I honestly feel that they should've either built a properly fleshed-out immersive world, or created a sort of sandbox PvP game with a much more open world.

I'd say their best bet now is to adopt a free to play model (without micro transactions please! just think Guild Wars) and either streamline the entire "rpg" element of the game such as the leveling process and questing, or flesh out the rpg element entirely to make WAR a proper mmoRPG (the latter is unlikely to happen though considering the current state of the game and Mythic alike)

WAR, in it's current form, would have been best if all the questing and levels were removed and it was turned into a game like Team Fortress 2. Pick your class, jump in, beat on some heads in a battle ground or fortress siege. All the other stuff feels tacked on and not worth a monthly subscription.

My problem with the combat is all you got was two large groups of ranged classes that were over powered and the melee classes getting owned because the zerg of ranged could own them in seconds even with tons of healers on them. So you then got this no mans land in the middle and it was this constant boring back and forth.

Also the game is designed where groups will easily own a solo and well in WoW what I loved is any class can own anything aslong as the person player is skilled. I remember killing 3 people attacking me at once in WoW with my Shadow Priest just because I was better. In WAR every class has the same basic skills and same basic CC with the same basic escapes. It basically meant you had no chance if you were out numbered. It also made the classes feel the same in their archetypes and made the game feel so boring.

Another thing was the combat was slow and wasn't fun and there was this weird lag between hitting the UI buttons and seeing your character do it on screen. In WoW everything is instant and feels really good, gives you that feedback and WAR doesn't.

It doesn't help that the Engine WAR is based on is the horrible DAOC which also had very poor combat and you can't even swim under water which sucks cause if you jump off a cliff you die from hitting the water.

yeh and I agree with LaughingTarget.

I don't want to grind 30 boring levels to get to Tier 4 when the rest of the game is so crap and boring. All I want is levels 30 - 40 with the City siege and all I want is the Human and Chaos areas because they're the only populated ones. You don't need the rest of the game it puts new players off cause they're always alone. I mean if they did that then I'd be interested in trying it again because playing in Beta that part of the game was fun. We didn't have scenarios in beta at that point so it was packed and busy fighting over keeps. Scenarios ruin the game and need to be taken out as well.

Venekor -

I never had trouble as a melee fighter in the game. I played a Knight of the Blazing Sun (40/45) and my bro was a Warrior Priest. We would go entire scenarios without dying and sitting comfortably on the top of damage, healing and points, whether our side won or lost. Range guys had nothing on us. We would regularly take on, just the pair of us, six or even eight opponents in open world RvR and we even managed to take down an entire T3 fortress with a squad of four. WAR has a surprisingly deep strategy element to it and simply throwing healers and ranged guys at the enemy might work if the two sides aren't thinking it through, but a well placed KotBS or Chosen charging into the center of the enemy lines will break it up as will a Slayer or Choppa, especially with group damage abilities.

Again, WAR would be an awesome game if it was a F2P game like Team Fortress 2.

Yeah, I agree for the most part with LaughingTarget. If they aren't going to truly flesh out the rpg element of the game, just get rid of it. Or at least streamline the leveling and questing enough that it doesn't feel like a massive, boring roadblock keeping your alts from enjoying the real meat of the game. Normally I enjoy having to spend time leveling a character (for example I am actually loving how long it's taking me to level in Aion), but there's not enough immersion in WAR to make such a thing feel rewarding or interesting.

As for what you're saying Venekor about the combat, I see your point but a lot has changed in recent months and I mean a lot. That weird delay between pressing your ability and having it fire is essentially gone now...finally. It still doesn't feel *quite* as responsive as WoW, but frankly not many games do, which is sad considering there are many other mmos out there that (in my opinion) do PvP a lot better than WoW but aren't as responsive.

Anyway, WAR is pretty damned close now though since the last patch. It did wonders, really. You have a point about the bigger zerg almost always winning, but that never bothered me much personally since it's so easy to group up in WAR (assuming there are people online to group with, which is a whole other issue entirely)

Yeh I mean I don't like WoW anymore cause Blizzard butchered it a long time ago but it's such a shame because before battlegrounds I remember it having the best world PVP out of any game. I mean the combat system is still the only one where I loved the PVP because they just got the feeling of combat so right. They made it feel like a twitch based game but within the turned based style of combat. Where has in other mmorpgs it feels very slow and static.

The other great point of WoW is they went for less is more with the classes and each class really has three ways to play them. In WAR I found that every class in their own archetype felt the same like the Black Orc and the Chosen felt like I was playing the same class. Now I made posts in beta on that point and saying the classes felt very bland and nor fun to play but I just got flamed by fanbois. Then when the game launched my friends that came over from WoW played the game and they said that they made several alts and got bored because they couldn't find a class they liked. Thats always a sign of bland boring classes and combat to me cause the same happens in other games like EQ2. However it never happens in WoW, people have fun with every single class cause they're all fun and unique.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDXMLjEcoUo

Heres an example of what the PVP was like for me, just two big groups of Ranged and I didn't like RVR because the combat didn't hold up well on it's own and the map design was boring.

Theres another point I mean it didn't feel like Warhammer, the art was pretty bland and the engine it's based on is so poor the animations are pretty stiff because of it. I remember traveling between two races worlds which is bad world design for me cause it stops it from feeling like a world. You get this poor cutscene of you on a Griffin type thing and the animations didn't match the sound effect lol.

Theres paul saying as a Squigg herder you'd bash on the squigg until he gets bigger and bigger and then it eats you and you control him via his guts. Then when in game and theres no animations of that or anything you just switch form lol. Theres no gore in WAR and to me there needs to be gore in Warhammer. The game looks like Warcraft and everyone tells me thats what Warhammer looks like. However to me Warhammer looks like the original Warhammer Online game Climax or whatever was making and released the trailer. It's meant to be dark and depressing and scary and like the trailer said "it's no fantasy". Yet Warhammer just feels like WoW hammer.

"The problems with Warhammer Online can't be fix because it would require making a whole other game. I mean the first major flaw is that it doesn't feel like Warhammer but more like WoWhammer and then you have the horrible engine and the fact the game isn't fun and the world design is poor and the combat system sucks etc etc."

Mythic have done an awesome (and huge on any budget) job with the Warhammer feel and Lore.

It did run poorly but that's been fixed.

World design is kick ass. I should know, it's my job (and my company hasn't gone under).

Combat system is great, i've played every MMO released since and i keep coming back to WAR. Although given this years releases that's not saying much. I should also point out that I love: PvP and hate: Grinding.

Yeah, it's basically Warcraft with PvP replacing PvE (although WAR's PvE is more fun than Warcraft's PvP) and a much darker, less rainbow-spew art direction. But hey, that sounds like the game I want to be playing.

I think if they released it as it is now, it would have been a success. I'm not championing the game; they clearly blew it, but I must point out that as it now stands the game is great.

That was also claimed by Warhammer once. As we see today, War is the one getting destroyed. One can hope that SWTOR doesn't go down that same road when released.

That's a very, very naive attitude.

I think a lot of people are expecting SWTOR to be one of the highest quality MMOs based on Bioware's track record, but that doesn't mean it will get the subs to make it a WoW killer. In fact, it almost certainly won't.

yeah...yeah...we've heard that before.

Sadly TOR is not going to Kill WoW because the "I want it now" generation will find having to go through the stories will be to much of a time sink.

I just tried WAR and so far I like it. I dont know what it is like in the upper levels. I feel really bad for those 80 people laid off. I wish BioWare was not atttached to EA.