Up until about 4pm(1600) today, I'd been having the day from hell. After 4 it was more normal, and since I'm hopefully going to go see Paul Blart: Mall Cop in a little over an hour, the day will end on a high note. But what made the first part of my day so hellish? Sentences and speech.
It's often said that particles are the glue that holds sentences together. Particles are words like the, is and it, at least I'm pretty sure they are. Anyways, as of three AM this morning I found myself given an object lesson in just how much bullshit that saying really is. As it turns out, there is actually some segment of the brain that you need to pass the words through in order to glue them together and form a sentence.
I know this with absolute certainty, because when I woke up at 3 am this morning, that part of my brain was almost entirely out of commission. The greater part of my mind was still working, in fact I was examining my condition with great fascination, and thoughts and ideas continued to form. However, it felt as though there were some amount of white noise foremost in my mind. I conjured up a few words to say to test my faculty for speech, "i" "can" "speak", had the words ready, and then underwent a herculean process of breaking through that white noise enough to form a sentence with a words. I then had to battle my mouth to make it form the tongue and lips into some formation that would create a sound other than "aaaugh" before finally being able to speak my short sentence. I'm pretty sure my voice sounded like crap just then, and in review, I may have been slurring a bit, but at the time it was one hell of a relief to get out that first sentence. A relief tempered by the fact that once out, the sentence was gone and would have to be reformed from scratch.
I went through two more test sentences in those next few minutes. Truth be told, I was rather fascinated by the processes I was feeling work in my mind. The way the words would slide around the edge of the white noise, as though trying to form a new path to each other to make those important bonds that underlie a sentence. During all of this, I felt rather like shit across my whole body, any cold air that reached my legs felt like ice, the covers didn't seem to impart any warmth, and what felt like a fever even though my forehead wasn't warm to the touch.
I didn't feel scared until what felt like probably five minutes in. The point at which it occurred to me that this may not be temporary. When I began to very vividly imagine a future in which I returned my full faculties of thought, but could never speak to, or be understood by anybody again. At this point I began to attack the noise head on, pushing as much thought as possible into and through the region. Within a few seconds, the noise began to diminish, and in around or perhaps a little under a minute, the noise went away and I was able to function normally.
I don't remember much of the next few hours. I finished watching the series Samurai Champloo, and tried to focus on some bits of writing and fluff for Ronin Beat. I had agreed to give someone a ride at around 9, so I wound up awake until about 9:30 when I saw them and was apparently still looking bad enough that they offered to put it off until tomorrow without my saying a word. I slept till 3, waking up more tired than when I had gone to sleep. My day finally started at around 4, and like I said, it's been pretty all around normal since, other than being very tired... well actually that is normal.
So how was your day?
2.2.09
1.2.09
Ronin Beat - New Testing Build
Testing Ready Build 2
Combat
- The damage model has been changed. Now you have a damage limit, when exceeded in a single hit you go down. When dealt over 75% of your limit in a single blow it counts as a gash. Under that is a glance.
- The d20 roll has been modified slightly. 1-15 are still dodges, and 16-18 are still normal hits. 19 is a 2x damage hit, and 20 or natural 0 as it's reported deals 2.5x damage on it's hit.
Character
- Levels! You now have a level, and it has an effect on you. Unfortunately you do not gain experience at this time, instead you can test duels between equal level characters at levels 1, 5, and 10.
- A PC gains 20% increased damage and damage limit per level. A NPC gains 10% damage and 25% damage limit per level.
UI
- The damage reporting segment has been updated to reflect the combat changes.
- Placeholder portraits have been added for the combatants.
- The program now has icon art.
Where to get it:
Please leave a comment in the thread if you are participating in play testing.
Also if testers could send an e-amil to RBeat.Update@gmail.com with the word "Tester" in the subject line. It'll be very helpful in allowing me to send out surveys and what not. I'll also try and keep more regular updates going out through it, and see if I can't fit some goodies of sorts into it somehow.
Combat
- The damage model has been changed. Now you have a damage limit, when exceeded in a single hit you go down. When dealt over 75% of your limit in a single blow it counts as a gash. Under that is a glance.
- The d20 roll has been modified slightly. 1-15 are still dodges, and 16-18 are still normal hits. 19 is a 2x damage hit, and 20 or natural 0 as it's reported deals 2.5x damage on it's hit.
Character
- Levels! You now have a level, and it has an effect on you. Unfortunately you do not gain experience at this time, instead you can test duels between equal level characters at levels 1, 5, and 10.
- A PC gains 20% increased damage and damage limit per level. A NPC gains 10% damage and 25% damage limit per level.
UI
- The damage reporting segment has been updated to reflect the combat changes.
- Placeholder portraits have been added for the combatants.
- The program now has icon art.
Where to get it:
Please leave a comment in the thread if you are participating in play testing.
Also if testers could send an e-amil to RBeat.Update@gmail.com with the word "Tester" in the subject line. It'll be very helpful in allowing me to send out surveys and what not. I'll also try and keep more regular updates going out through it, and see if I can't fit some goodies of sorts into it somehow.
Ronin Beat - Levels
Early Leveling flow concept
NPC exp reward curve
1 - 1
2 - 8
3 - 24
4 - 72 - swordmaster
5 - 216
6 - 648
7 - 1944 - General
8 - 5832 - Big Bad
9 - 17496 - Lu Bu (An incredible soldier from the three kingdoms period of chinese history.)
10 - 52488 - Musashi (Most famous Japanese swordsman... EVER. A living legend in his day.)
78729 total if killed in row
PC exp requirement curve
1 - 0 - Has basic motor skills to lift a sword.
2 - 3 - New Apprentice
3 - 9 - Practiced Apprentice
4 - 81 - Swordmaster
5 - 243
6 - 729
7 - 2187
8 - 6561 - Master Kuron/Shin, Master Ken (Wanderer without title)
9 - 19683 - THE Master Ken (Most famous swordmaster on the planet)
10 - 59049 - Once a century talent, true living legend.
88545 total required to reach 10
9816 difference
PC level growth:
+20% damage output per level
+20% more damage required to wound per level
NPC level growth:
+10% damage output per level
+35% more damage required to wound per level
Some Notes:
I wanted the players to be constantly seeking someone the next level up or better, since that will drag them pretty much all the way up a level. The difference growth will, I'm hoping, mean that battles between the greatest masters will draw out a bit. Also, while a level 1 player can't one hit a level 5 no matter what, it isn't certain that a level 5 will one hit a level 1 player. It'll probably be most comfortable fighting those within a couple levels +/-, but losing isn't certain until you get closer to a 7 odd level separation.
As for the rarity of level 9 and 10s... Lu Bu was considered one of a kind in all of China, but there were probably a couple people that could have beat him... in theory. Musashi on the other hand... Musashi beat his most serious opponent, a man famous for his long sword (about 7" longer than a regular katana), with a long wooden sword he reportedly fashioned from the spare ore of the boat that was bringing him. He was cagey, for certain, but let's face it he was also completely awesome. (Or the historians of the time just suck and he really assassinated him with the help of his students... for our purposes, we'll stick with the popularized version of him.)
NPC exp reward curve
1 - 1
2 - 8
3 - 24
4 - 72 - swordmaster
5 - 216
6 - 648
7 - 1944 - General
8 - 5832 - Big Bad
9 - 17496 - Lu Bu (An incredible soldier from the three kingdoms period of chinese history.)
10 - 52488 - Musashi (Most famous Japanese swordsman... EVER. A living legend in his day.)
78729 total if killed in row
PC exp requirement curve
1 - 0 - Has basic motor skills to lift a sword.
2 - 3 - New Apprentice
3 - 9 - Practiced Apprentice
4 - 81 - Swordmaster
5 - 243
6 - 729
7 - 2187
8 - 6561 - Master Kuron/Shin, Master Ken (Wanderer without title)
9 - 19683 - THE Master Ken (Most famous swordmaster on the planet)
10 - 59049 - Once a century talent, true living legend.
88545 total required to reach 10
9816 difference
PC level growth:
+20% damage output per level
+20% more damage required to wound per level
NPC level growth:
+10% damage output per level
+35% more damage required to wound per level
Some Notes:
I wanted the players to be constantly seeking someone the next level up or better, since that will drag them pretty much all the way up a level. The difference growth will, I'm hoping, mean that battles between the greatest masters will draw out a bit. Also, while a level 1 player can't one hit a level 5 no matter what, it isn't certain that a level 5 will one hit a level 1 player. It'll probably be most comfortable fighting those within a couple levels +/-, but losing isn't certain until you get closer to a 7 odd level separation.
As for the rarity of level 9 and 10s... Lu Bu was considered one of a kind in all of China, but there were probably a couple people that could have beat him... in theory. Musashi on the other hand... Musashi beat his most serious opponent, a man famous for his long sword (about 7" longer than a regular katana), with a long wooden sword he reportedly fashioned from the spare ore of the boat that was bringing him. He was cagey, for certain, but let's face it he was also completely awesome. (Or the historians of the time just suck and he really assassinated him with the help of his students... for our purposes, we'll stick with the popularized version of him.)
30.1.09
Ronin Beat Randomization
After having the chance to mess with it on computer, I'm not particularly happy with the randomness of Ronin Beat. On an actual tabletop where the players are rolling the die I'm willing to stand by the d10 roll, but not in the computer where it makes everything a crap shoot.
What I'm thinking is that I'll change to a numeric damage output, but keep the health pips as is. The way that would work is that each person/enemy would have a max damage, if they take under three quarters of that in one hit, it's a glance, over three quarters it's a gash, and over the max it's a down. This would also segway into the introduction of levels, as those would have to determine how hard you could hit, and be hit.
Unless I get feedback to the effect that people are completely enamored with the random factor, I'm going ahead with that change.
What I'm thinking is that I'll change to a numeric damage output, but keep the health pips as is. The way that would work is that each person/enemy would have a max damage, if they take under three quarters of that in one hit, it's a glance, over three quarters it's a gash, and over the max it's a down. This would also segway into the introduction of levels, as those would have to determine how hard you could hit, and be hit.
Unless I get feedback to the effect that people are completely enamored with the random factor, I'm going ahead with that change.
29.1.09
Early Playtesting - Ronin Beat
This link from Rapid Share is only good for 10 downloads, but that would be half my total visitors so I doubt anyone will actually run into much trouble getting the file.
http://rapidshare.com/files/191407436/Ronin_Beat.exe.html
So what is this? It's the combat system that I worked on while my computer was down, with a few minor changes.
At the moment I don't have any levels or anything in it... in fact I don't have any art assets either. Still you can get in and see the math go to work. As is kind of necessary with the play testing phase, I need more than just any bugs you dig up, I need thoughts, opinions and heaven forbid... ideas!
I'll be putting more work into this for the next little bit, but I'd definitely prefer some sort of point of reference for what really needs work.
http://rapidshare.com/files/191407436/Ronin_Beat.exe.html
So what is this? It's the combat system that I worked on while my computer was down, with a few minor changes.
At the moment I don't have any levels or anything in it... in fact I don't have any art assets either. Still you can get in and see the math go to work. As is kind of necessary with the play testing phase, I need more than just any bugs you dig up, I need thoughts, opinions and heaven forbid... ideas!
I'll be putting more work into this for the next little bit, but I'd definitely prefer some sort of point of reference for what really needs work.
The question that rests like a gun to the head of the MMO industry.
What do you do if the perceived value of content reaches zero?
Value is a purely subjective measure, a comparative measure as to what is most worth your dollar. We have two measures of value, the natural and most common measure, and the more objective measure. The first is a comparison of what we pay for similar things, the second is what else we could be getting for that same amount of money.
MMOs as they stand are largely a content delivery mechanism. Their numerical and mathematical base being also the core of their user interaction means that their game play is rarely a content generator, such as you would see most aptly in Force Unleashed for example. What this means is that the player base requires a constant stream of new content, which with a maximum efficiency team should be produced in roughly O(n) time. O(n) time means O(n) pay checks, and while hiring more people would allow you to produce more content, you can't hire more people to produce the same amount of content faster until you are dealing with overarching story plots that can actually be subdivided into lesser partitions.
What all this means is, your product's intrinsic value is tied to the content delivered. The cost of content has a flat bottom, where each equivalent sized package of content costs a certain minimum to create which cannot be reduced. Thereby any equivalently "sized" game must cost at least the minimum cost of the associated content to create, with the game's engine, design, and core game play programming being added on top.
Ironically, although the quality of content often scales the cost of generation upwards, for professional level work, people generally pay roughly the same amount for any equivalently "sized" package of content regardless of quality. The monetary gain usually being manifested in number of purchases, rather than quality of purchases.
The baseline price for MMO content has been $15 for a while now. However, with the proliferation of non-flat rate business models, and the rise of user generated content being passed from a purely hobbyist vantage to a business model in itself, the baseline perceived value of content is approaching $0. It is important to note, however, that it is not the perceived value of any particular "package" of content that is approaching 0, it is the perceived value of content as a whole. Also, more than any particular business approaching any particular model, it is rather that the sheer amount of content available is so overwhelming, that content is losing all value associated with rarity. Having access to content of almost any sort is easy and free with the current climate of the internet.
My personal answer:
Much like novels, we will grow and adapt as consumers and businesses will, of course, fill in the voids. But in the mean time, some of the best in the industry will probably find themselves replaced by small operations that weren't even on their radar. Likely, launching without full content will become even more of a death knell than it is now, as it will be assumed that the game has full content and only the quality would set it apart as a worth while purchase.
But there are deeper aspects to this as well that don't fit very well within the current market overview. For instance, the very model of an MMO as a content delivery system will have to be reworked, at the very least it will become incumbent on them to act as content generation systems. User generated content as we generally refer to it probably will not be at the core of this, instead it will more likely be emergent rule sets designed to evolve alongside the players.
At least that's my $.02.
Value is a purely subjective measure, a comparative measure as to what is most worth your dollar. We have two measures of value, the natural and most common measure, and the more objective measure. The first is a comparison of what we pay for similar things, the second is what else we could be getting for that same amount of money.
MMOs as they stand are largely a content delivery mechanism. Their numerical and mathematical base being also the core of their user interaction means that their game play is rarely a content generator, such as you would see most aptly in Force Unleashed for example. What this means is that the player base requires a constant stream of new content, which with a maximum efficiency team should be produced in roughly O(n) time. O(n) time means O(n) pay checks, and while hiring more people would allow you to produce more content, you can't hire more people to produce the same amount of content faster until you are dealing with overarching story plots that can actually be subdivided into lesser partitions.
What all this means is, your product's intrinsic value is tied to the content delivered. The cost of content has a flat bottom, where each equivalent sized package of content costs a certain minimum to create which cannot be reduced. Thereby any equivalently "sized" game must cost at least the minimum cost of the associated content to create, with the game's engine, design, and core game play programming being added on top.
Ironically, although the quality of content often scales the cost of generation upwards, for professional level work, people generally pay roughly the same amount for any equivalently "sized" package of content regardless of quality. The monetary gain usually being manifested in number of purchases, rather than quality of purchases.
The baseline price for MMO content has been $15 for a while now. However, with the proliferation of non-flat rate business models, and the rise of user generated content being passed from a purely hobbyist vantage to a business model in itself, the baseline perceived value of content is approaching $0. It is important to note, however, that it is not the perceived value of any particular "package" of content that is approaching 0, it is the perceived value of content as a whole. Also, more than any particular business approaching any particular model, it is rather that the sheer amount of content available is so overwhelming, that content is losing all value associated with rarity. Having access to content of almost any sort is easy and free with the current climate of the internet.
My personal answer:
Much like novels, we will grow and adapt as consumers and businesses will, of course, fill in the voids. But in the mean time, some of the best in the industry will probably find themselves replaced by small operations that weren't even on their radar. Likely, launching without full content will become even more of a death knell than it is now, as it will be assumed that the game has full content and only the quality would set it apart as a worth while purchase.
But there are deeper aspects to this as well that don't fit very well within the current market overview. For instance, the very model of an MMO as a content delivery system will have to be reworked, at the very least it will become incumbent on them to act as content generation systems. User generated content as we generally refer to it probably will not be at the core of this, instead it will more likely be emergent rule sets designed to evolve alongside the players.
At least that's my $.02.
28.1.09
27.1.09
Patience Rewarded
I've been having a hard time focusing lately, especially on the whole job hunt. You see if I had a job, I'd probably want to move out of my parent's house, and if I were to move out of my parent's house, I'd transition. My parent's are rather hard line Mormons, so as much as I love them, I've always thought that once I transitioned, I wouldn't be able to see them and talk to them anymore.
Today, my mother told me that even if I transitioned, I'd still be welcome to visit them, and to keep in touch.
I can't... I don't think I can say what this means... shit I think I'm going to cry. Anyways, just, have a great day everyone. Be happy, and don't sweat the small stuff, yeah.
Today, my mother told me that even if I transitioned, I'd still be welcome to visit them, and to keep in touch.
I can't... I don't think I can say what this means... shit I think I'm going to cry. Anyways, just, have a great day everyone. Be happy, and don't sweat the small stuff, yeah.
The Lich
Mortals. Need I say more to expose your pathetic arrogance. I suppose I must, then, as you seem not appeased. You who draw your swords in my home, before my hearth, and in my humble hall of friendship. Rambling on about justice, about sanctity, and above all of life.
What do mortals know of life, so thoroughly is your lives entrenched in death. You call this magic of yours the magic of life, and yet all you do is delay an inevitable end. You cling to the feel of your skin and the tautness of your muscles, measuring life in ones ability to maintain that hollow shell. For all your healing, for all your "life", your fate remains inescapable.
But not mine. No I, with this magic you claim to be the magic of "death", have attained life beyond the flesh and sinew. For a thousand years and a thousand seasons more has my life continued, and with the grace of justice and the gods will continue for thousands more. And yet you, who fear death with all your puny existence seek to lecture me on life.
A desacrator, an unholy abomination with no respect for the "sanctity" of this so called life, you say. In what are you so sanctified, according to whom do your gods torment you so. I, the defiler? What a claim to lay before me, you who should be declared murderers. You who damn an entire race to an inevitable and preventable demise, all for the sake of your sanctity, for your useless piety, for your false gods. Strike me then, if you remain so certain of the justice in your hearts, but be forewarned. The Lady of justice, blind though she may be, lay behind my blade, and in this very hall around me, crying out for the destruction of your sorry, rotten souls.
I was thinking lately about good bad guys, and especially bad guys that could really be identified with. The concept of a lich giving the mortal heroes a lecture on life and death just sort of came to mind tonight as I was trying to get to sleep. Hopefully with it out of my mind and down on paper I can actually get some sleep.
26.1.09
Something Positive
I feel like writing something positive, so I'm going to give a short review of Suikoden V.
If you like JRPG game play and love amazing writing, you'll find this game fucking awesome beyond all reason.
If you hate JRPG game play and love amazing writing, It'll still be fucking awesome beyond all reason, you'll just be too far into a frothing rage about turn based wizardry style combat to notice.
If you hate JRPG game play and hate amazing writing... I just feel sorry for you.
There you go, a happy note by my standards.
If you like JRPG game play and love amazing writing, you'll find this game fucking awesome beyond all reason.
If you hate JRPG game play and love amazing writing, It'll still be fucking awesome beyond all reason, you'll just be too far into a frothing rage about turn based wizardry style combat to notice.
If you hate JRPG game play and hate amazing writing... I just feel sorry for you.
There you go, a happy note by my standards.
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning | Preview Weekend 1 & 2, Open Beta, Levels 1-21
I've had some distance now to try and look back at my days in WAR objectively. I don't claim to be critiquing the whole game, just the first twenty levels or so, before the leveling pace dropped off enough to halt my apparent progression. This is to be a critique of the game, so if you're looking for fuzzy bunnies and rainbows... why are you even reading a post about WAR?
There were a few things that WAR did that set it well ahead of the curve. The first, and probably least obvious, is that each stat had a dual function. This didn't entirely prevent dump stats, nor create a viable mechanism for balanced characters, but it was a step in the right direction. Second to that is combat capable, if not overpowered, healers. It's really a shame that the player base fell into pointless bickering and shortsighted complaints of players not doing their job. It would have been an entirely different game, in many ways, if the player base had instead solidified behind their healers making them the comparative rock stars of the game, rather than the tank as is usual of cooperative dungeon play.
Despite their having excellent stylistic feel for their environments, WAR, ironically, lacks much sense of warfare beyond a few exceptions, all in PvE. Warfare is governed by a few simple rules, it's the effort to place out a significant force of trained and equipped personnel into an enemy territory to take and hold points of logistical and tactical importance, or the same but in defense of your own territory. Skirmishing experts, like the elves, seemed to make sense, with their prolific use of ambushes and attacks along the flanks... but pretty much every other army seemed to be of the opinion that throwing out warriors one at a time would somehow turn the tide of battle against an organized foe. In fact, if not for the player's godlike status, and the AI's relative stupidity, every battle the player engages in should result in their side's complete and utter defeat. What makes this a true failing of the game is that it spawns from a war game, even if a particularly tactical one.
Before I move on, the only ways to fix that particular failing is to implement a system of logistics. WAR was remarkably lacking on the logistical front, with severe limits on crafting, but also without any significant sinks to encourage organization. While an organized war band may be more effective, a disorganized war band doesn't really face any significant challenges so long as it can outnumber it's opponents, and they are also disorganized. With the proliferation of pick-up war bands and general disinterest in open RvR this was hardly an uncommon feat. This would often cause the teeter totter effect where one side would be forced back into their static defenses, but then gain so much power from their defenses as to then wear down the opponents morale and allow them to safely wait out a shift in numbers. In a more logistical system, each side would have to make other considerations, for example would it really be of any worth to wait outside an opponents camp and be worn down, when moving your lines of defense back to the strategically important points would allow for greater tactical flexibility, but also allow you to maintain a larger overall force and better defenses. Likewise, would it be wise to fall back to in-place defenses if you were then to consume the logistical advantage that would allow you to attack. Much like in real warfare, logistical considerations add a significant amount of planning and down time, but they also add weight and decrease the uncanny nature that surrounds wanton skirmish warfare.
The classes in WAR rarely seem to scale well. Their specialties and usefulness seems to undergo mercurial shifts from bracket to bracket, or even level to level. Back lines dps becomes front lines dps, becomes crowd control, then finally shifts back to dps. A front line healer goes from healing/buffing for the front line, to becoming a veritable tank in itself, to a slightly longer lasting front line dps, to a back line healer. None of this would be so significant if a player could choose to stop leveling and settle in a bracket they feel comfortable with, but instead it's inevitable that a character will go through all of those permutations, and possibly even more in the twenty levels I hadn't had a chance to investigate. Overall, these strange twists serve to punish a player for leveling, as they find out that the role they have spent the last 8-10 levels learning to play is suddenly no longer viable, or is simply so much less effective that they are forced from being on top of their game to being on the bottom of their game.
I'm not going to get into a debate on the good and bad points of a mud inherited loot based system. I'm sure there are plenty of those out there, somewhere. I will simply say that WAR does, as it must, suffer from all the problems inherent in such a system. Likewise it does, as it must, benefit from all the advantages of such a system.
To close the "bad" points segment, I'd like to briefly touch on Richard Bartle's comment, "I've already played Warhammer, it was called World of Warcraft". I'm sure I've already publicly stated that in general I agree with him, but it's worth repeating. WAR and WoW are incredibly similar games, with most of the differences being in the fine detailing. It isn't even so much comparable to saying that a pair of chairs are alike, so much as saying a pair of finely crafted Victorian rocking chairs are alike. Sure to someone who spends all day in one and then moves to the other, or to a true connoisseur, they seem very different, but to most sane outside observers... their both finely crafted Victorian rocking chairs, and it isn't really that important which one you find yourself sitting in, if any at all. (After all rocking chairs may not be your thing.) But also to add my own thoughts on it, the problem I see is that the two are uncomfortably similar in a fashion which tells me many decisions were made because "it's an MMO, that's just how it's done." This can be seen in the UI, the skills set-up, and the dungeon system. There have been many good examples of how to break from all of those, some of them would have worked especially well with their flavor of game and setting. For instance a Guild Wars style mission system, balanced more around war bands, would have been a better selection than their limited dungeons in most cases. It would have allowed them to fill in the story better, as well as allowed the players to interact more with the iconic armies of the game, such as bloodthirsters, war bosses, and steam tanks.
Finally, I can't talk about WAR without bringing up the public quest system. It is one of those sublime systems that keeps the player wondering why anyone hadn't done it before. While I'll admit the balancing on some needed some work, there was a certain charm to either pre-arranging a group for them, or just picking up a group of random stragglers to complete one. Their level design and placing of them was also generally quite good, both space efficient and relatively intuitive.
There were a few things that WAR did that set it well ahead of the curve. The first, and probably least obvious, is that each stat had a dual function. This didn't entirely prevent dump stats, nor create a viable mechanism for balanced characters, but it was a step in the right direction. Second to that is combat capable, if not overpowered, healers. It's really a shame that the player base fell into pointless bickering and shortsighted complaints of players not doing their job. It would have been an entirely different game, in many ways, if the player base had instead solidified behind their healers making them the comparative rock stars of the game, rather than the tank as is usual of cooperative dungeon play.
Despite their having excellent stylistic feel for their environments, WAR, ironically, lacks much sense of warfare beyond a few exceptions, all in PvE. Warfare is governed by a few simple rules, it's the effort to place out a significant force of trained and equipped personnel into an enemy territory to take and hold points of logistical and tactical importance, or the same but in defense of your own territory. Skirmishing experts, like the elves, seemed to make sense, with their prolific use of ambushes and attacks along the flanks... but pretty much every other army seemed to be of the opinion that throwing out warriors one at a time would somehow turn the tide of battle against an organized foe. In fact, if not for the player's godlike status, and the AI's relative stupidity, every battle the player engages in should result in their side's complete and utter defeat. What makes this a true failing of the game is that it spawns from a war game, even if a particularly tactical one.
Before I move on, the only ways to fix that particular failing is to implement a system of logistics. WAR was remarkably lacking on the logistical front, with severe limits on crafting, but also without any significant sinks to encourage organization. While an organized war band may be more effective, a disorganized war band doesn't really face any significant challenges so long as it can outnumber it's opponents, and they are also disorganized. With the proliferation of pick-up war bands and general disinterest in open RvR this was hardly an uncommon feat. This would often cause the teeter totter effect where one side would be forced back into their static defenses, but then gain so much power from their defenses as to then wear down the opponents morale and allow them to safely wait out a shift in numbers. In a more logistical system, each side would have to make other considerations, for example would it really be of any worth to wait outside an opponents camp and be worn down, when moving your lines of defense back to the strategically important points would allow for greater tactical flexibility, but also allow you to maintain a larger overall force and better defenses. Likewise, would it be wise to fall back to in-place defenses if you were then to consume the logistical advantage that would allow you to attack. Much like in real warfare, logistical considerations add a significant amount of planning and down time, but they also add weight and decrease the uncanny nature that surrounds wanton skirmish warfare.
The classes in WAR rarely seem to scale well. Their specialties and usefulness seems to undergo mercurial shifts from bracket to bracket, or even level to level. Back lines dps becomes front lines dps, becomes crowd control, then finally shifts back to dps. A front line healer goes from healing/buffing for the front line, to becoming a veritable tank in itself, to a slightly longer lasting front line dps, to a back line healer. None of this would be so significant if a player could choose to stop leveling and settle in a bracket they feel comfortable with, but instead it's inevitable that a character will go through all of those permutations, and possibly even more in the twenty levels I hadn't had a chance to investigate. Overall, these strange twists serve to punish a player for leveling, as they find out that the role they have spent the last 8-10 levels learning to play is suddenly no longer viable, or is simply so much less effective that they are forced from being on top of their game to being on the bottom of their game.
I'm not going to get into a debate on the good and bad points of a mud inherited loot based system. I'm sure there are plenty of those out there, somewhere. I will simply say that WAR does, as it must, suffer from all the problems inherent in such a system. Likewise it does, as it must, benefit from all the advantages of such a system.
To close the "bad" points segment, I'd like to briefly touch on Richard Bartle's comment, "I've already played Warhammer, it was called World of Warcraft". I'm sure I've already publicly stated that in general I agree with him, but it's worth repeating. WAR and WoW are incredibly similar games, with most of the differences being in the fine detailing. It isn't even so much comparable to saying that a pair of chairs are alike, so much as saying a pair of finely crafted Victorian rocking chairs are alike. Sure to someone who spends all day in one and then moves to the other, or to a true connoisseur, they seem very different, but to most sane outside observers... their both finely crafted Victorian rocking chairs, and it isn't really that important which one you find yourself sitting in, if any at all. (After all rocking chairs may not be your thing.) But also to add my own thoughts on it, the problem I see is that the two are uncomfortably similar in a fashion which tells me many decisions were made because "it's an MMO, that's just how it's done." This can be seen in the UI, the skills set-up, and the dungeon system. There have been many good examples of how to break from all of those, some of them would have worked especially well with their flavor of game and setting. For instance a Guild Wars style mission system, balanced more around war bands, would have been a better selection than their limited dungeons in most cases. It would have allowed them to fill in the story better, as well as allowed the players to interact more with the iconic armies of the game, such as bloodthirsters, war bosses, and steam tanks.
Finally, I can't talk about WAR without bringing up the public quest system. It is one of those sublime systems that keeps the player wondering why anyone hadn't done it before. While I'll admit the balancing on some needed some work, there was a certain charm to either pre-arranging a group for them, or just picking up a group of random stragglers to complete one. Their level design and placing of them was also generally quite good, both space efficient and relatively intuitive.
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