LAGWAR | PC GAMING'S BEST IN TOP NOTCH MEDIOCRITY

I ran home after an interesting late night session with the 21st Judicial District Drug Task Force in Tennessee and just had to go to War!  Armed with a Corona and a mighty high speed internet connection, I logged in to see if I could sense any major changes immediately.  I live on Volkmar, and once in, I found that everything was locked with a Destro push on Altdorf, so I decided to focus on the new user experience.    The Warhammer client greeted me with the major message above, and I wanted to give you my quick first impression on some of the key low level features.  Particularly, apprenticeship and the new user experience.

I decided to create a new character – a dwarf – to see what the new user experience changes would look like:

How odd it was to see this pop up when I created my new dwarf:

A brand new cut scene and a tutorial screen popped up straight away after loading, and the new starting area:  Grimmenhagen:

The new tutorial is very comprehensive, and deals with things like combat, quests, scenarios, grouping, guilds, and inventory management.  For someone very new to this game and MMORPGs in general, it would be a welcome addition.  For veterans, you can just click the Show Tutorials option to shut it down.

The quests still start you out killing Marauders, but it feels better for some reason.  You definitely appear to flow through the quests in a more orderly manner.  The basic quest Grimmenhagen Burning is still the same.  Kill the torch bearing marauders.  Free the villagers.

One interesting change when I queued up for the first time:  My level 1 became Level 11 in Nordenwatch. Basically it seemed to deliver a +900 HP boost.

Make Apprentice. This was the change I wanted to see, and I was immensely disappointed.  Fyrstarter, a level 40 guild mate, graciously expended some time coming down to Nordland.  I apprenticed him, and was raised to level 40.  He could not queue me for T4 scenarios.  I could not fly to T4 areas.  He could not down tier to my T1 state.  What was the point?

When I voiced my complaint to the new /gu chat that I had as a member of the Forces of Order guild, I met the following statement from the Mythic moderator.  Basically, the moderator responded that he / she did not know the intent of the change.  He / she suggested that I should direct questions to Grab Bag.

To clarify: There also exists a new guild called The Forces of Order, and I am their newest member – by default.  Now, I have my own starting guild and a group of fellow noobs with whom to get started in the world.  Once you start the game, you start off in a guild that brings together the new players.  I think this is a superb idea.

Forces of Order Guild: A+

Apprenticeship: F-

Tutorial: A+

Starting Quests in Grimmenhagen: A

Stay tuned to check out the Daemon Moon Rises live event which starts on the 23rd of October.

You can find all the details on the 1.3.2 Warhammer patch @ http://herald.warhammeronline.com/warherald/NewsArticle.war?id=945.