Infamous Scribbler  Posts: 579 Joined: 24 Mar 2008     | |
Beat Writer  Posts: 167 Joined: 30 Apr 2008    | What an asshole! I'd actually been thinking about trying it out at Christmas but now it's not going to happen. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 1333 Joined: 16 Jan 2008     | A link would be nice? |
Muckraker  Posts: 295 Joined: 24 Dec 2007  | so you're not going to foster a single thought about Warhammer Online ever again? never ever? that's a long time. |
Copy Clerk  Posts: 51 Joined: 17 Sep 2008   | Well... I'm personally of the persuasion to feel happy every time someone thinks poorly of WAR, because it deserves every ounce of scorn and loathing it could possibly ever recieve. I don't really feel the need to bring Paul into it though; it's been apparent for quite a long time that he suffers from terminal diarrhea of the mouth. My personal feelings on the game: It's WoW with some tweaks. I like WoW, I don't like WAR, and every second I play it (due to my idiot friends somehow finding it to be the dog's bollocks) I loathe it more; it's repetitive even for an MMO, which is saying something, and I've started noticing another REALLY ANNOYING thing about it... it has like THREE voice actors. And they all say the exact same things. I made myself a witch hunter and I got very close to having fun, but the "no immersion" thing (probably the only glimmer of truth mr Barnett has ever excreted from his mouth) hits me over the head when *EVERY GODFORSAKEN NPC IN THE UNIVERSE*, upon meeting me, would inquire... "Here about the war, then?" "You here 'bout the war?" "Perchance, are you in the area to inquire about additional information regarding this armed conflict we seem to be having?" "Psst, would you like for me to tell you about the war?" Now if the game had allowed my witchhunter to start putting her gun to people's faces upon meeting them and go "Hello. Ask me if I'm here about the war, I fugging DARE YOU!" *Psychotic Madwoman on the loose!* "It was horrible", said Boring StockCharacter, a farmer from the hamlet. "My neighbour, who is my identical twin and wears exactly identical clothes, much like every male in the village really, walked up to this person... I figure he was going to ask her if she wanted to know about the war, being as how that's all we ever talk about EVER, but when he got close she shot him in the forehead and perforated him with her rapier until he was little more than a stain on the ground!" More after these messages! |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 1025 Joined: 19 May 2008    | Face it, MMO NPC's always have been and probably will be living signposts. Besides, WoW uses the same voice for every NPC race as well. Would you care to point out the radical differences that makes the NPC's in WoW an intense immersive experience, while Warhammer's are just cardboard cutouts? Because I don't see it. And sure, let's all boycott the game because one person from the development team acted like a jerk on TV. They obviously all hate us and want to eat our babies. Seriously people... stupid comments from developers has nothing to do with the quality of the game. This sounds like a load of unfounded WoW fanboy hate to me. Or the typical MMO-haters who have nothing better to do than critize other people's choice of games, instead of just playing the ones they like. |
Copy Clerk Posts: 51 Joined: 17 Sep 2008 | WoW's NPCs have more unique looks, and do not ask you inanely stupid QUESTIONS each time you have the misfortune to right-click them. It's not like there's any MASSIVELY deep interaction there, I never really felt that was needed, but it's just far less annoying that they in some stupid, make-believe language say "hello" when you click them. It just makes a helluva lot more SENSE. As for why I can't leave WAR alone, it's basically this: when I played WoW too much, which I clearly did at some point, I would sit around talking with my friends who equally played it too much, and we would say "hmm, [feature X] annoys me about WoW, I wish they'd change that", and we'd all nod and agree, or say "naah I don't find it that bad to be honest, and besides you can always emply [trick y]..." Now, when I make an effort to get into WAR, if I were to find something about it to my disliking, I am damn near put to the sword for heresy, because for some reason the same people who could sit around arguing about the shortcomings of WoW until the cows came home seem to consider it in violation of some law of nature to not mindlessly love every little line of code that makes up WAR. For instance, I remember when TBC came out I made a female Blood Elf to see the starting area, and while I found it reasonably pretty I was annoyed that rather than jump off the ground, she seemed to slowly FLOAT off it and into a jumping animation, which I found to be amateurish model design which should have been improved, and everyone thought that well, maybe he's right and maybe he's not, but I can respect that he thinks so", and we'd talk about it for a while and agree that indeed, here and there were small niggles in character animation that might need some looking at. I made a similar remark about my witch hunter's moves being quite well done, but her looking like her neck is hurting or something, because she keeps moving her head in a really weird and stiff way... I was told that I was just looking for flaws and my "favourite" retort these days came rather quickly, "Well it's not like WoW didn't have character animation issues..." Screw everyone who says those things right in the ear with a huge rubber replica of a male appendage, I never bloody SAID WoW didn't have character animation issues, in fact I pointed out the same stupid shit in WoW as I do in WAR, why am I all of a sudden not allowed to ya GITS!? ... AAAAANYWAY, much like religion... when I find something that is so ardently defended when it's not even being attacked, I feel an overwhelming need to destroy it and all it stands for. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 1306 Joined: 6 Jun 2008     | I always thought rational people judge games on their own merits and not some idiot talking about it. Are you irrational? |
Copy Clerk Posts: 51 Joined: 17 Sep 2008 |
I find it perfectly rational to judge a product at least in part based upon wether or not a high-up in the company that makes it says to the press that you must be some kind of cretin for actually using it. |
Muckraker  Posts: 348 Joined: 13 Aug 2008 | As selective as Games Workshop is about everything else involving their IP, their choice in game developers really sucks balls. So far they've managed to hit a solid win once with Relic and the Dawn of War series (and possibly more, if you want to include the "old school" games). Everything else in recent memory involving the GW IP has been soundly mediocre at best--though not without a good concept! Squad Command for the PSP/DS could've been a damned awesome game but it just ended up being silly, and far too short and lacking in replay value. The same, apparently, goes for WAR. They set out to do nothing but make a knock off of WoW rather than making a MMOG with its own unique merits which paid due credit to the great IP they had to work with. They should've taken a hint from the little gem which is Dawn of War because, why did DoW succeed? Largely that it was a unique game; Relic didn't simply set out to slap the 40k IP on some pre-existing design of gameplay and call it good. It doesn't always take this kind of innovation but when you're dealing with trying to compete with something like WoW, mere emulation is doomed to failure, there's no two ways about it. Even if your game is a-fucking-mazing, its going to have a hard time unseating the popularity of something with such a huge fanbase. |
Infamous Scribbler  Posts: 690 Joined: 31 Aug 2008  | I've met Barnett, he came to my high school, it was a nice way to waste 2 periods watching Warhammer Online trailers and stuff. |
BANNED  Posts: 829 Joined: 9 Aug 2008    | mark_n_b, I can't tell what expletive you were censoring out...may I ask what it is, to satisfy my overbearing curiosity? User was banned for: Half-wits to the left of me, Wankers to the right. (Permanent) |
Infamous Scribbler Posts: 579 Joined: 24 Mar 2008 |
OK this was a bit of a rant. This interview was on a Canadian television program, and we all know how often Canadian TV gets put on the net. I'll see if their site has a copy of the video (but their site is not the most functional of things any more) and do a bit of an internet search to see if there is any online source for y'all. I am sorry, that was a bit of a rant, but when I saw this interview I got really very angry. I was interested in checking out the game too, then this came on, and I felt it was just one more thing that gave the video game culture a worse image than it should have. |
Infamous Scribbler Posts: 579 Joined: 24 Mar 2008 | http://www.elecplay.com/newsdate/2008-09-14 Here is a link to last week's episode (they haven't updated with this weeks yet) at the end of the 4th part of the online airing (it's quite a good piece about Michael Turner, one of the most impressive comic artists of the contemporary day. He'll be missed.) you see a preview with Barret talking about Warhammer and using the word "poo"... grrrr angry again. Beside the video click the link that says "playlist" to pop up and choose the episode sections. www.elecplay.com, since I was last there a few months ago they've done a revamp, I am impressed. |
Copy Clerk  Posts: 58 Joined: 12 Aug 2008   | Well, as with all games there are things that you can debate/argue but in the end it'll all come down to preference. So, I'm not going to try and sway anyone, just making important points. Warhammer Online has been claimed by its creators to be, "The greatest hits off MMOs" and that while, "WoW is like the Beatles, we're more like Led Zepplin." I have no idea which of the numerous press videos to point to for those quotes but they say things like that a lot. Anyways, for the most part I'm defending WAR because I like it. However, at no point am I going to say, "Its completely original! It revolutionizes the genre!" because its simply not true. What WAR is doing is as WitherVoice's post began, having a conversation about whats wrong with the genre. Then they kick those things to the curb, leaving behind a more fluid experience. Hence the Greatest Hits bit. I'm not entirely sure what they mean by the Beatles/Zepp comment, I imagine its about the flavor of the world, but that is something entirely left to personal taste. Something which you could say the same about Paul Barnett. His brand of humor is akin to Yahtzee's in that he thinks that if he spouts words at you fast enough you'll laugh. Additionally much like Yahtzee... he uses hyperbole to make a point. Do not take it seriously. Some key points in favor of WAR: - Public quests. A fun sort of activity that if you have too few or too many people will not be fun. However, at the very least you don't have to sit around waiting for people to join your party. Just jump right in and hope you get the right balance. Even if you don't you'll still get influence points to get better gear. - Collision detection allows for the the strategic blocking of choke points and tanking for healers/ranged DPS. - Guilds have levels and are able to take down keeps/forts. Claiming them as their own. - The main city for each faction evolves over time depending on how well your faction is doing. More quests, vendors, and dungeons open up as a consequence of this. Making your actions matter to the rest of the game world. - After playing at least one of each race... there's not a single class that sits there and auto attacks. You will be using every drop of those action points. This is only not the case if you are worried about aggro management. - Open world PvP makes sense. Its not just a nuisance or an excuse for people to go around ganking. Additionally, higher level players (aka 70s) can't come down to gank. Though the guy 5 levels above you will still probably win in a one on one. Some key points not in favor of WAR: - If you've played WoW you'll feel way too at home here. The gameplay mechanics and UI are essentially the same, even though there's lots of different way to actually play the game. - Scenarios are fun... but are essentially Battlegrounds. - Although there's no item deterioration, if you die you will get an injured status that you have to pay to heal or wait some minutes to automatically go away. - Technically the graphics in WAR are better than WoW. However, I still prefer the WoW style more, they accomplish alot with the texture work and animations. - Why are there still so many quests that have me killing X of Y? It might be a staple of the genre, but so was losing exp everytime you died. - Much of the stuff that does make the game different is actually stuff they grabbed from Mythic's other title, Dark Age of Camelot. Like some kind of Frankenstein monster. Also, most of it is mid-late game content. PS. As Firefox was catching my typos, one of the spelling options for ganking was wanking. True story, try it. |
Infamous Scribbler Posts: 690 Joined: 31 Aug 2008 |
I just did. ganking |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 2311 Joined: 7 Mar 2008   |
actually WoW's npc's look more the same than the WAR ones, heck all the chars look the same. they have limited amounts of faces, as for some having the same armour, well they ARE in an army so reason would stand they look the same so far i've found WAR a lot more fun than WoW |
Copy Clerk Posts: 58 Joined: 12 Aug 2008 |
Explain yourself, why did you not turn into a chicken? |
Gone Gonzo Posts: 1333 Joined: 16 Jan 2008 | Ok, I've watched the offending article and I think you really need to understand English humour before moaning. Some of the things he says that you so object to are said in jest. "you'll be playing for the next 27 years" he's simply saying it's fun with a little exaggeration thrown in. And his words were about commitment. That it's important for a hobby that you can commit to it, because you're paying money for it. Hence why it shouldn't be easy, because if it's easy, it takes out the fun of actually having a challenge. He compared it to food, again in jest. He's proud of his game, oddly enough. The immersion comment I think you've sailed past. The guy works with Americans, in an American country, he likes them. But he's English and makes friendly jabs over the comparative usage of immersion - since arguably, he's right that immersion is the wrong word, but overall the meaning is the same. As for looking presentable, that I just don't get. God forbid should games designers ever stop having a stick up their arse! If that happens, their sense of fun might actually seep into the game, and I don't know, make it fun? No doubt you'll think I'm wrong or that regardless he has a stoopid sense of humour and they shouldn't allow it, but I for one am glad at least someone out there in the games industry remembers how to smile, and I think you're really overreacting to something you don't actually understand. |
Pulitzer Laureate  Posts: 885 Joined: 2 Sep 2008  | What has that got to do with Warhammer Online? I watched a special on Warhammer online and I honestly can't see what the problem is. |
Infamous Scribbler Posts: 579 Joined: 24 Mar 2008 |
Read the post next time silly. Anyway, here is the updated video with the Paul Barnett interview. Make your own opinions, I stand by mine, I cannot watch past the "Warhammerrrrrrrrr" stupidness. It doesn't help that the interviewer is being a total jackass too. http://www.elecplay.com/newsdate/2008-09-15 The interview is in the second episode section. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 1825 Joined: 6 Sep 2008  | Dude, he's just a drunk Englishman. These are the kinds of people who MADE Warhammer in the first place. "Hey, hey gush. WAAAAAAGHHHHHHHH!... Wasnht that awesome? Yesh it was." Chill out. |
Assistant Video Producer  Posts: 527 Joined: 19 Feb 2006     | Are you sure that was a press event and not at some game show recently? It just looks like he is tired and has been up all day taking to people. Which is what would happen at a convention. I think it's a combination of exhaustion and English humor, maybe some booze. Ultimately it didn't change any opinions I had on the game. I thought he actually gave a fairly true to model description of why people pay to play MMOs. For as serious as Warhammer is on alot of it's content and lore. It is surprisingly tongue in cheek as well. So while no means a great interview, I don't see what was so off putting in it for you. The Warhammerrrrrrr things was annoying though. What no Waaaaaghhhhhh? |
Anonymous Source Posts: 3 Joined: 22 Sep 2008 | hmmm... WoW or WAR... Point for WoW Point for WAR Point for WoW Point for WAR Point for WoW Point for WAR Conclusion Ether way, I'm thinking I'm going back to console gaming if blizzard doesn't get it's head out of it's ass, or going to WAR if it doesn't blow goat turds from it's face crevices |
Muckraker  Posts: 284 Joined: 5 Jul 2008  | Even if the interviewee is a douche, that doesn't stop the game from being good. I've never been really into MMO's, and this may be my first serious one |
Pulitzer Laureate Posts: 885 Joined: 2 Sep 2008 | @mark You also misquoted him, he was explaining payment he said they "run a subscription business model you give us your credit, we check it and then you can keep playing." Yeah he specifically said Americans which is a mistake as every nationality mistakes imagination for immersion. The thing you seem most offended by was his eccentric personality, he doesn't have the same sense of humour, so we hate him? |
Paperboy  Posts: 16 Joined: 11 Sep 2008   |
I'm drunk and english. This game looks cool, but can never live up to my expectations. Never mind, time for another beer ;) |
Infamous Scribbler  Posts: 657 Joined: 8 Jul 2008 | You mean your thought on the developer of Warhammer. |
Copy Clerk Posts: 51 Joined: 17 Sep 2008 |
I disagree. I in fact find that there are massively more different MODELS, and massively more different armor/clothes looks in WoW than in WAR. I've played to level 25 on the chaos side. So far I've met: There are no characters that deviate from this mold in the chaos camps thus far. Oh yea, and I saw one goblin and a dark elf or two. And while the Dark Elves actually have some business all we |
I'm watching an interview with Paul Barnett on Electronic Playground.
Already thrown because it was thrown at one of these idiot "press events" which have loud music, and booze and no actual area for interviews or press discussion (always the recipe for quality journalism) I was additionally rubbed in the way wrong by the fact that Paully clearly had more than couple of pints under his belt and was admirably presentable in his T-shirt.
Show some respect for your consumers, keep sober and at least put on a blazer.
Then he started talking... You sign up for warhammer and you'll be playing it for the next 27 years. It's not easy, why would you find it fun if you didn't have trouble figuring it out. And because you paid for it you'll have to play it a lot, which you'll like, because people pay for food and they like food too. Unless your credit card doesn't work. And then it is an interactive experience, not an immersive experience.
You see, according to Barnett, Americans don't get immersion, immersion is being so into Half life you don't notice your house burning down. Now I'm Canadian, so I have the ingrained Canadian self-image issues that make me go "haha someone made fun of Americans, Canada is so awesome." And even I thought he was a douche when he winged that one out.
Then he finished up the interview by talking about his interviewers pants (I honestly don't know why EP just didn't edit that out).
This was not amusing and funny. It was offensive that he thought us, his potential consumers, are so insanely unclassed that he could tie one on and try to sell us his game.
No freaking way I am going to dump any money into that *********'s game.