The NDA is dead, long live the WAR!

I've never been so pleased with an MMO as I am with Warhammer so far, so I'll start with a few screenshots I'm sure some of you fans would love to see. Mind you, this is Closed Beta and the graphics system is NOT up-to-date with the most recent client and visual customizations have not been altered.

The Swordmaster



This is Vaer, he will be my High Elf Swordmaster I plan to take into release. He plays as he was described. He has three 'balances' he goes through and can be stringed together in a tree form. From Normal Balance he moves to Improved Balance, and from there he moves on to Perfect Balance. You can not use an Improved Balance ability while in Normal or Perfect Balance, and you cannot use Perfect or Improved while in Normal Balance. But you can still always use your Normal Balance ability in any of the balances, but this will move your balance into Improved. After using a Perfect Balance ability you will be reset back to Normal and the string can be used again.

How does a Swordmaster fair in RvR?

At a low level, a Swordmaster is basically a weak DPS. After reaching 10 you acquire the Guard ability, which you can place on an ally and as long as you remain 30 yards or closer apart you split the damage they receive. There are two ways you can equip your Swordmaster, Sword and Shield and Greatsword. A block from the shield fully negates the damage that it received, and the armor it gives is a great help to mitigate damage. With a Greatsword you sacrifice the ability to block and will wish to focus either on more damage output or parry ability (depending on how you wish to play your Swordmaster).

On to the world, I was stunned with how much content is thrown into this game.

The Map



A High Elf begins their journey on the Blighted Isle, this is an example of the map mostly discovered. The red areas highlighted on the map itself are actually where you need to go to complete or accomplish quests. When you hold your cursor over one of these areas a tooltip shows up, giving you the quest objective for that area highlighted. The orange area towards the bottom is the RvR zone for Tier 1 High Elf vs. Dark Elf, there are I believe 3 (the servers are down so I may be wrong) objectives to capture in the RvR area. The red arrows pointing south on the map indicate the zone continues to another map.

Public Quests



Here shows the boss for the first Public Quest in the High Elf side of the Blighted Isle, a large Hydra. The objective of this quest is the first phase you must kill several Dark Elves, the second you must take on waves of Dark Elf reinforcements running down the bridge towards you, the bridge shown in this shot. The third is defeating this large Hydra, and depending on both your contribution and luck of the roll, you will be awarded accordingly if you place amongst the top 3 after rolling finishes. From what I've noticed, winning loot in a Pubic Quest is almost entirely random. But your contribution will save up with each time you perform the particular Public Quest so you 'will' get loot if you keep at it. Doing this particular quest with a solid group of 6-10 players would take around 4-6 minutes each. After completing the event and the rolling process, a small timer pops up in your UI indicating when it will reset and you can partake in it again if you wish.

Exploration

You will NOT be disappointed if you decide to explore the world around you. I will not give detail of where to find what I will show in these screenshots, but they are found in the High Elf verse. Dark Elf Tier 1 zone.



That's right, a level 40 hero I believe to be a troll in the fog of a cave named Gorthlak. Be careful where you step, you may step into something nasty.



You know those rats in games that are simply there to give a cave or dungeon a bit more of a dirty feel? Be sure to not ignore them, because with a simple swing or two of a blade you can find a rather nice surprise waiting for you on the corpse of one.

The Atmosphere

Have you ever seen Saving Private Ryan? You know the feeling of being on the sandy beach in the middle of gunfire from the invading and defending forces? You can expect this in the Tier 1 zone of the High Elf verse. Dark Elf if you look far enough.



Just a small example of what can be found if you run through the troops of Greenskin who march into battle and passed the explosions of cannon fire in the sand. Both Dark Elf and Greenskin are constantly waging war against your High Elf brethren as you try to hold them back from their constant invasion.

Scenarios

You can queue up for a scenario from the small WAR icon on the minimap shown here



After entering the queue, either solo or party queue, you wait and enter when your turn comes. The scenario I will talk about is on topic for the High Elf verse. Dark Elf Tier 1 scenario, Khaine's Embrace.

The objective of this is simple, there are two flag nodes to capture and the first team to capture both nodes must hold them for 10 seconds, after 10 seconds pass a loud horn-like sound is made and the ground trembles as both nodes explode in a rather.. well here's what happens



Everyone, even the ones who captured the nodes, who is caught in the fire of this HUGE explosion takes a large hit, instantly killing them. The team who captured both nodes and triggered doomsday is awarded around 100 points, adding up to the goal of 500. So expect to see this at least 3-4 times each Scenario unless the defense is strong. The Scenario timer is clocked at 15 minutes, so do not expect hour long Scenarios with little reward. The team with the most points at the end of the timer or whichever team achieves 500 points first is declared winner and receive a large sum of both Renown and Experience points.

That's it for now, expect Tier 2, Open-RvR, more Careers, more Scenarios, and more Public Quests next update.