Ask a WAR Beta Tester: Greenskins and Chaos and Dark Elves, oh my

The road to Wahammer Online's release has been a lengthy walk for everyone. We've all been through ups and downs, but now that it's almost here we're more than happy to answer whatever questions are floating about your minds. So, in our second installment of Ask a WAR Beta Tester, we offer up some insight into the cut careers, leveling time and other questions of intrigue. All for the sake of satiating your burning desire to know more. Of course, we know that no matter how many answers are given there will be more questions asked. So if you've got something banging around in your brain that we haven't addressed, feel free to post a comment containing your question.

InfoMofo asked...

"If I roll a Dark Elf, and my friend rolls a Greenskin, how much time will it take before we can be playing together?"

Not longer than most could bear. It doesn't take very long for a player to come across a flight master, who is able to send players to any starting area for a small fee. In my experiences during beta, the flight masters start showing up in quest hubs towards the end of your starting zone. So if you want to level a bit through say, the Greenskin area as a Shaman before moving onto the Dark Elf or Chaos starting areas it shouldn't take you very long at all. Or, you could most possibly travel directly to a flight master at level one. Although, I would recommend grabbing a few levels in your starting area if only to help make the trip through both yours and your friend's zone easier. It only takes fifteen thirty minutes at the most to do.

FailedNinja asked...

"Can you give some rough leveling numbers? How many hours to reach level 10, 20, etc.?"

Most of my experience has been with leveling from 1 to 10 and so I'm the most familiar with that spread of leveling. With that in mind, I can certainly say that it doesn't feel like level 10 consumes much of your time, although Warhammer Online has a way of making time pass faster than you think it has. So by the time you've gotten to 10 you shouldn't feel like it took you forever, because your time will have been consumed by Public Quests, Scenarios and probably some open world PvP here and there too. If you're looking for a hard number, I would say around an evening of serious playtime for a hardcore player to clear the first tier. Or in other words, around three to five hours, depending on how casual you are about things. Otherwise, it could take a more laid back player around a few days of regular evening playtime. Granted, I'm speaking about playing through the zone without sight-seeing or any kind of sidestepping. Warhammer Online is pretty good about rewarding those who venture of the path less traveled. It almost encourages it with some of the unlockables you discover in the Tome of Knowledge.

As for level 20 and 30, those are obviously going to take longer with each higher tier. My best guess is that those zones, leveled through in order, will probably take less time than over games such as Lord of the Rings Online or World of Warcraft. The reason I say this is because a lot of the game is focused on leveling your PvP rank and not just your -- for the lack of a better term -- PvE rank. While there are plenty of regular quests, Public Quests and some dungeons there are also armfuls of PvP quests, Scenarios, open-world PvP and of course the capital cities that happen to be filled with everything above.

So long explanation short, it hasn't haven't ever felt like leveling through the zones was the primary experience in Warhammer Online. It's always been a mixture of RvR and different forms of leveling. As a bonus, the game doesn't seem to contain any deadzones where you have to just grind out mobs. You'll always have something to do, which should ease any leveling pains you typically experience in other games.

Chris asked...

"Can anyone comment on their impressions of the cut classes?"

Unfortunately I can't tell you anything about the Black Guard, because it was never put into beta testers' hands. I do know that it's the mirror to the Dwarven Iron Breaker career and had a mechanic that was very much similar to grudges. However, for the Black Guard it was called "Hate" instead. There are some NPCs in the game that appear to be wearing what looks like could be high level Black Guard armor. They look really, really cool. I'm not sure if that's a form of comfort or just pouring salt on old wounds. Hopefully we'll see the return of the lost careers.

As for the Choppa, Hammerer and Knight of the Blazing Sun, they haven't been in the beta for quite some time now. Back when it was available, I mostly played the Choppa (green is da best!) and can tell you it was a career with a lot of promise. The last time I played it was late last year, just before the original beta shutdown that lasted a couple of months. Its mechanic was all about building up a huge WAAAGH! rage and going crazy for several seconds. During that time, the Choppa would glow red and unleash some particularly nasty abilities. It was a lot of fun to play, but probably would've needed some serious balancing tweaks. I do hope we see the the career make an appearance in the game sooner rather than later.

The Hammerer is the Choppa mirror, so its mechanic -- while different flavor-wise -- was the same. Build up lots of angry Stuntie rage and smack at things with either one really huge hammer or two hammers at once. Although I kind of felt like a Hammerer with two hammers looked a bit like the Warpriest and a Hammerer with one resembled the Iron Breaker. So we could see a slight change in whatever Mythic eventually presents as the Dwarven melee DPS. I remember seeing a lot of Hammerer players running around during that phase of beta, so I think that Mythic will bring it back.

The Knight of the Blazing Sun was much like the Chosen in terms of having auras it could interweave at will. Flavor-wise the career saw lots of armor featuring fire, flame and sun imagery. Oh, there were also pantaloons. Oh my, how there were so many puffy pants.

censorman asked...

"Is there an overpowered class?"

No, not in the sense that one single class can win in each and every PvE or PvP/RvR situation. There are careers (WAR's term for classes) that tend to have an easier time of things depend on the situation at hand. For instance, a Witch Elf is going to fair better at running into an open world RvR situation and killing something quickly before fleeing danger than say, a Chaos Magus. That's just how the Witch Elf is designed, though. It haven't actually ran into a situation in the past month or two where one class was completely dominating most situations. Mythic is still tweaking small things, however.