Warhammer Online has come out this month and I was lucky enough to score a copy to play with. It highlighted to me more of the subtle nuances that occur in gaming today.

If you have played any genera of games in the last two decades you can lay out that "genera" in this case defines the game in a broad sense and then after that it comes down to flow, details, and theme. People whom hate certain genres say that all FPS, or shooters if you prefer, are all the same. Where true fans can tell you the massive difference between Team Fortress 2 and Counter Strike or Halo. Even though it is the same idea of pointing-a-gun-at-someone-and-shoot-till-they-die there is always more to it than that.

The same principal applies to MMOs, perhaps even more so considering the devastation it wrecks on the social calender. In this case I will use four major hall marks. In order of appearance they are Ultima Online, Ever Quest, Worlds of Warcraft, and Warhammer Online. Here are just some of the things that stand out to me when these games are mentioned.

1) Ultima Online

• first 3D "mud"
• Race and class choice= Human, Just-some-Guy
• No leveling system but rather getting "skill ups" from use.
• PvP griefing becomes harsh and brutal.
• Seabass the Red tears into poor people using massive rule exploits in the Lake Superior and Great Lakes shards.
• Dying means lose everything and cry "OOooOoOOoOOO" all the way home.
• UO ten dollars each month

2)Ever Quest

• Massive true 3D world with many classes, races, and numbered leveling.
• When you die you lose a good chunk of exp (and hours of time) in a negative reinforcement lesson of how not to suck.
• Huge time sink where large raids of people spend actuall days at the computer for large raids
• Treasure is first come first ninja with no hope of fairness
• ten million expansions of content, races and classes
• So much content people actually print out libraries of written work on the subject
• Scary looking men get to really look like an online elf warrior for the first time
• "Down time" means get some extra reading done

3) World of Warcraft

• Took everything you hate about EQ and threw it out
• Cartoony look but not harsh graphics so everyone can play
• Addiction is staggeringly high and the population of the game comes 27th in the world categories of countries
• Quests made easy and fun
• Does not take itself too seriously even when too many people do
• Addresses the casual player more than any previous title
• Constantly updates based on player feedback and new design, not just expansions
• Addictions now cost fifteen per month, per account (yes, I said per account)

4) Warhammer Online

• PvP is now a way of life with RvR
• Quests made so easy to understand the players guide is just a brick with WAR on the side you hit yourself in the head with everytime you forget to look at your map.
• Level system is attached to everything, Players, Guilds, Realm Status, Cities
• You can level through PvP and skip almost the whole of the content world
• The things you hate about WoW? yep they tossed them too
• Leans more into fast paced PC gaming skill rather than epic story feel. Role-play servers are filled with strange people whom often find themselves alone in level 1 cities
• I'm doing great and I still have no idea what the game is about.

I for one have always been the casual player so for me Warhammer became very ideal. I can log in, sign up for a RvR battle ground, or wander out in a Realm vs. Realm zone and shoot people like crazy. More so I get rewarded well for it. Like so many people out there that love a genera it all comes down to the details in the end. For me the details are pvp that feels like real skill, rewards for being awesome, and after that big worlds and fun events are good icing.

This isn't a recomendation to play War. Unless you are a frustrated PvPer like me when you were playing WoW (before you quit for the third time; oh I just know it will be better this time....) then by all means jump right in. Since I also play a great deal of all other games it struck me that because MMOs desveredly have such a static sense to them by the mass public I wanted to applaud Mythic on breaking what I had considered the great monolitic WoW mold.

Who else has fond memories of the quirks of your paticular game? One for me was getting on the Halo 1 Ghost, using the "floaty gravity" to ram myself up and over the fort in blood gultch, and moving back and forth over the flag like a horrible lawn mower.

Seabass