Kaza

These folks do not understand what fun is, even for the nitche that WAR should fullfill.

1. They introduce a race, that isn't a playable race. You cannot establish a connection with something long term when you don't control its growth, talents, etc.

2. They introduce Skaven classes that don't matter.

* A Rat Ogre can knock people away... who cares? If there were tanking classes like the Ironbreaker, Black Orc and more that could do that.... oh wait.

* Two other classes that they didn't even seem enthusiastic about. Including another dreaded "support" class like the Eng and Magus.

* Gutter Runners who can jump onto walls and sabotage siege gear... once again, really? Pretty sure people do Witch Elf, Marauder, Choppas pushes as is. The only reason that stopped was due to the deadbolt on keeps. Scrap the entire stupid class and just take away deadbolts, problem solved and people can play the actual characters.

3. The Skaven dungeon is another absolute joke. Last I checked they removed the PvE elements from Altdorf and IC because they were fatally flawed. Now they bring it back as "part of the campaign" and mechanics that Pokemon would be ashamed of. Taking your RR 65+ players out of the true RvR combat to, once again, grind PvE loot for RvR better is disruptive and downright retarded. Even now a new 40 can be 2-3 shotted in RvR in most cases, why would you take something like that and allow only the long term grinders access to even better gear?

Mythic has thier heads up thier arses once again. Which is horrible since you can tell there is a core group there trying thier damnedest. Working under clueless executive staff though leads to disasters.

So here is the thing I see with leveling in Cata and why I stipulate that 1-2 months is more realistic:

1. There are bottle necks; While we are doing our utmost to provide feedback and suggestions/bug reports. There are still some major bottle necks with the quest lines. This includes certain phasing, mob spawn rates, item spawns, locations, travel times, etc. Either way I can name a good 12 places off the top of my head where people will be grouping and waiting to complete one quest to advance a phase or advance the quests.

2. Figuring out the gear; People are going to struggle with the new mastery, reforging and gemming. In addition you have to find where key items are to able to adequately tank, heal or dps the dungeons. Cataclysm is larger then many expect and it will take awhile to accumulate the necessary things to progress.

3. Does anyone really expect the game to work with no issues the first week? Blizz has a stellar record, so not going in that direction. What I mean is the graphics are greatly improved and people have been crashing for this reason or that. There could be ques, lag, griefing and all other manner of fun in the chaos of the first week.

4. Learning how to CC again; This isn't a joke, I'm running across people with King Slayer titles that don't grasp sheeping and why it's important. Let alone the huge array of current and new forms of crowd control within Cata. Many of which are necessary in dungeons and even some group quests.

5. The classes are the same, but different; Do you play a Shaman, Warlock, DK, Paladin or Druid? I'm testing those and lets just say that bar space is at a premium. My tanking DK has caused my fingers to learn gymnastics, I'm partially blind from managing my procs and new rotations on my Shaman and my Warlock is still a bit wonky on when to use X vs. Y. People are going to be playing with specs, gear, all the new abilities and toys and it will take time to find the rythm for raiding.

Don't get me wrong, core raiders will adapt and overcome with ease. I am thinking about the averages and using my experiences as a back drop.

Good article, but I have to disagree with the end game date example. Or you may want to define "end game" as well. Are you talking about just 5 man heroics at that point, or full on raiding? The example of 14 days is just unrealistic, not optomistic as presented. There are some guilds who will have a 10 man running in 2 weeks. Even a few hardcore guilds doing 25 mans, but those are few and far between.

As someone who has done the 80-85 experience, I would give the average guild a month or more to really get into raiding. Most casual guilds will be looking at 2-4 months to level and gear up enough to step into raiding. I'm using the current 5-man heroics at 85 as a base line. The learning curve in returning to crowd control and getting the right loot to break into raiding will take some time. While the raids are not open to testing yet, the Heroics are and they are taxing.

I am not a guild leader, but I do lead guild raids and have lead them in WoW since the UBRS days. Realistically I would set up a date to get people introduced to the dungeons of maybe 2-3 weeks. With the more hardcore able to lead and carry others while they continue to level up. That way once your core hits 85 they will be competent and desired for dungeon runs, both normal and heroic.

As the core gears up, they will enjoy it more since your hardcore team will have established techniques in advance. This eases the guild from a core few 10 mans or 25 into the larger raiding game. Eventually allowing you to "PuG" within the guild and knowing you'll down at least 6/12 bosses, as an example.

So lay things out, get input from the guild on what they feel is realistic and add milestones as a guild. Once each milestone is reached you can look over the remaining milestones and adjust them as needed.

I am a returning player and have to say I am loving the game now. The launch was rocky, plain and simple. However the game has improved on all fronts and I am very excited for the update and the coming expansion.

Hardly a fan-boi either, I tore this game apart at launch and our entire guild went to the, then, WAR beta. We all know how that turned out.

The graphics are incredible, I don't suffer from lag or glitches. Have yet to crash once since coming back a few weeks ago and even enjoying the RP-PvP server.

Keep up the good work FunCom, you are one of the few developers I've seen to really turn a game around and do the right thing.

Juice is beyond full of it. I was a beta tester for WAR for months and months. I wasn’t in the very first round, but damn close. Never at any time did Mythic under any circumstances say, claim or suggest that WAR would become a free-to-play MMO. Or that it would ever be a micro-transaction driven game after a set period of time.

I am not a fan of WAR, just look up previous posts by me on past WAR articles. I even posted a huge commentary on the decline of WAR on the official forums. WAR was to be a great game, failed horribly and now it will flounder regardless of improvements. Is it a great game now? Perhaps, but it came too late and developers should learn that the launch is far more important then meeting that release date.

I was very excited about Global Agenda in the beginning and it will be a hit for a time just like any FPS. The options, graphics and fun are all there, but the package is all wrong.

This game is not “massive” no matter how you look at it. To say that 300 people can all attack in 30 different matches is incorrect. Different hexes have different windows in which to be attacked. In addition there are many times where a waiting game is required as you need a missle silo, mech or drop ship in order to “move” to the next hex and be successful.

What ends up happening is a guild with 300 paying players ends up having only a few matches a night. Most will be forced to que up for instant PvP and grind away levels. Also the immersion of being able to continually push a skirmish line is lost. You have to move in, protect your gear or have replacements and then continue that process once the gear is available and the next hex is vulnerable. Also when you are moving up the enemy gets to “reset” each time. So any tactics revolving around keeping them on their heels is impossible.

Planet Side and to a lesser degree pure FPS games have all done the massively part better. A 10vs10 or even a 30vs30 is nothing when you are in a relatively small area with walls all around. Go onto Planetside where you have continents and multiple bases with mobile spawn points and vehicles and get a true since of combat.

All that being said: I will be playing Global Agenda come release. The same way I played Hellgate London. As a free FPS with a box purchase to enjoy with the other FPS fans until the next thing comes along. The idea that the subscription model will be a long lasting and integral part of the game seems doomed to failure. The hook is there, but I don’t see a carrot.

Allod’s is really shaping up to be an A+ title right now. They are branching out in a new way that combines some of the best MMO aspects with an almost Pirates of the Caribbean feel. To play it is outright surprising, as this is a free to play MMO!

This game has already stolen away my attention from WoW raiding as collecting T10 has become mundane. Not to say WoW isn’t good, WoW is a great game. However I’ve seen everything minus a few unreleased wings in ICC. Exploring this new world with the heavy steam punk elements is both engaging and interesting.

For anyone toying with the idea of trying a new game, try out Allod’s. It took some real convincing for me to try it and I do not regret it. Especially when compared to upcoming paid titles like STO which thus far are just incomplete and sloppy.

My hope with Allod’s is that it remains engaging and fun in a way that opens the eyes of our U.S. developers. If they can do so much with a free-to-play, why are companies like Cryptic and Mythic making these incomplete and sloppy pay to play games? I might just ban any company from my computer that has an “ic” in it like Mythic and Cryptic. They are “ick” for a reason. (^_^)

Allod's is the first Free-2-Play I've ever enjoyed. The beta was truly impressive from a polish and game-play standpoint. I had to ask myself several times if I read things correctly and this was in fact free-to-play.

The initial start-up might be jarring for folks used to WoW and clones due to no auto-attack. However even as a melee that becomes a non-issue by level 4 or 6 and you never noticed it past level 10. The mini-map exclusion was a tad confusing at first but I slowly got back into my EQ groove of memorizing a zone and loved that I was watching my screen not a circle in the corner.

So far I’ve tried a few classes to level 10 (Summoner, Warrior, Paladin and Druid) and they area all very cool. I do not say that lightly, ever class is very different and has a place in a group. More so then most games you see come out today which are more solo-centric. What I also loved was the ability to take your class in remarkably different directions.

This level of customization isn’t limited to a specific tree so much as the talent grids allow you to branch out for some really unique builds: both hybrid and min/max. This is one of the first games where I see several end game specs and hybrids being viable for a number or roles.

I’ve had some real Everquest nostalgia with this game, in a good way! The death penalty is there but not overwhelming, more like a time-out. The stats are vitally important and learning which stats you need for what is enjoyable. The difficulty is also there, this isn’t the WoW push-over PvE that many have come to expect. (Yes I know about WoW raiding and my Shaman Kharzek has the gear to prove it.) The PvE is challenging and you can approach areas in different ways as to not die. The group/raid bosses as you progress are enjoyable as well and give you a reason to group for some solid upgrades.

I don’t have experience with the dungeons outside of Xaes and the Fortress place on the goodie side. They were both fun and had some neat quests to complete with variances outside of just “Kill X and Y”. I am looking forward to experiencing the PvP in CBT4 and will give a more in-depth review then.

Final Thought: If you go through the item shop there is nothing game-breaking on there. Everything I’ve seen thus far is to help you level or add bag-space and clothing options. All of the “best” gear comes from quests, reputations and dungeons/bosses which is as it should be. These guys have the right of things thus far and I look forward to playing come release.

Haha, oh yes WAR is thriving so much that servers continue to shut down and people on the forums still complain about balance and populations. For the people saying the lay-offs mean nothing. Try comparing Mythic's lay-offs to every other MMO developer. Yeah, they are one of the few and that is due to WAR failing.

Also, since when in the hell is WAR an RPG? There is NO role-playing in the game. No decisions, consequences, just RvR and mind numbingly boring PvE. As for the RvR, last I checked it was a farmers dream, that is all RvR revolves around. Especially with the absence of the forts everything is reduced to zerging. Those few who do the small elite groups are fun, but rare and the dueling nonsense is just that, nonsense.

For those fanatical folks who refuse to see the writing on the wall. WAR is dead, the budget was there for these updates and more will come. The game will fade to something akin to Vanguard. A few thousdand dedicated individuals who really love the game. If that is your gig, then more power to you.

These blanket statements are too outlandish. No, not all guilds run like a business or military. The people on this particular site are obviously impressed by the article, however it is not bound in truth. The rules set above could work for a less mature and/or organized guild. To bring these kind of rigid rules to a mature raiding guild would be detrimental to the raiding environment.

My guild is primarily military yet we do not act as such. Most of us are now either in college or business men and women who enjoy playing the game. We can babble on about sports while killing beasts. That by comparison might require utter silence from a less mature guild. So once again the rules of a guild and raid should be tailored to the make-up of that raid. Not some arbitrary rules posted on a site and certainly not in the format mentioned above.