"WAAAAAGGHH!!"

WARNING! WARNING!

Shameless advertising and pandering ahead! Turn back now or be bombarded with bias!

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WAR IS HERE!



Yes I did! Yes I bloody well did!

I finally gave into the urge and bought Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.

And let me tell you, it's really fun!

Without going into the mechanics of the game, you begin by choosing a side: Order or Destruction.

Having been a fan of the Warhammer orcs for years (and owing to the fact that I can't play as my favourite race yet), I chose to play for the Forces of Destruction, more specifically the Greenskin army on the Karaz-a-Karak Core server.

My first character?

Snotface the Squig Herder!



(Pictured: Snotface admiring da spinny deff blades on da lumba mill.)

I've always had a soft spot for the gobbos and the idea of running around with a hopping ball of gnashing death that only follows orders if you feed it bits of people or stab it in JUST the right way was a real draw for me. It works out that you can unlock different kinds of squig pet as you play, although you can only have one active per time. But this is okay once you work out that if you get a high enough rank (er... 9 I think) you can learn a skill that makes your squig blow up in a poisonous cloud of splash damage, wreaking havoc among that horde of monsters that just tried to eat 'im! And I will admit that my first reaction on finding this out and testing it was, 'Some a' dese squigs explode! Dat's good, innit!?'.

And of course, finding out that you can summon a battle squig (which promptly eats you, as shown in the early stage of this video) that you can ride around in and get into melee with was a real treat. You can still have a squig pet as back-up!



(Pictured: Snotface in Squig Armour with Fartbag the Gas Squig.)

I haven't stuck with him too much because at the moment Squig Herders are a tad bit underpowered, but I'm sure that'll be fixed nice and soon.

I began play on the Order side of things a couple of nights ago (the Burlok Role Play server, actually, good fun!), creating a Bright Wizard by the name of Odwyn.



(Pictured: Odwyn casting one of his many nifty fire spells and looking a bit Native American.)

The Role Play servers have a couple of rules when it comes to naming one's characters, so there was a nice lack of people with stupid names on this server. I was growing tired of seeing people with names like 'OMG' and 'Quim' and all sorts of irritatingly rubbish names.

I only ran into two other people who seemed to be getting into the RP aspect of it, and got a couple of good bits of dialogue.

The best bit was when I joined a Warband (these are formed when standard Parties get too full, and a Warband can consist of up to 16 people - truly awesome Player vs Player potential, especially if you can get 'em worked up!) to do one of the Public Quests. Public Quests are a fantastic idea - basically, there will be an area indicated on your map by an open chest. Each of these is a rather nifty scripted piece of questing that is open to everyone nearby, which means that they're a fantastic source for experience, loot, murderins and forming groups! I myself have been heavily influenced by the 'You're gonna have to work together or get smashed to bits' ethic of Public Quests, and regularly join groups and warbands after a quick introduction. I KNOW, MR. ANTISOCIAL actually talking to people and helping out.

Anyway. We were on the final stage of a PQ. After having fought off waves and waves of Chaos barbarians, marauders, magi and raiders, we were gathered around waiting for the last part. Suddenly, off to one side, out of sight, we hear,

'Time for smashy! HUR HUR HUR HUR! RAAAAARRRRRGGGHHH!!'

It's a Giant. And these things are HUGE. Example?



(Picture: Destruction/Greenskins Public Quest: Ugrog's Rage.)

Stood next to my character is a Dwarven Engineer girl, wielding a rifle and giant spanner, who comments on the giant's tree-cracking (yep, trees get broken down, houses get blown up, cliffs collapse, boats are set alight - WAR Online's quests are amazing)appearance with a simple,

'Ooooh, bugger me..'

To which I respond by cackling maniacally and shouting 'Ah, he'll make a pretty pyre! BRING HIM DOWN!'

I was met with a volley of agreements and warcries, and we set to work.

The giant did make for a lovely bonfire at the end, and I got some rather nifty loot for my part. PQ Loot is rolled for according to contribution, so damage dealt, damage healed, buffs given, objectives completed, etc. and I snagged a Gold Medal for my contribution and 400 Experience (XP) toward my Renown bar, as well as a Lesser Loot Bag with some shiny new gloves in.

And speaking of Renown, one of the quickest ways to fill up your Renown experience is, funnily enough, one of the most fun methods.

KILL ENEMY PLAYERS!

I haven't had quite as much fun in an MMO as I did that night, accompanying a gang of Order players in a Realm vs. Realm quest against the Forces of Destruction. It could have been far more interesting if there were more players of course, but we worked with what we had. We were running around the coastal township of Ermskrank and Feldenplatz, hunting Destruction players who just didn't have enough numbers to put up a good fight, and none of us were a high enough level to rush the NPCs at their base. Still, I killed 10 or so players and sometimes, that's all that matters.

Anyway, as you can probably tell I've gotten distracted by something WAR Online related, so to summarise, I ain't dead, I'm enjoying my new game, my bills are (mostly) sorted and all I really need now is a hot blind girl with no nerve endings to fall in love with.

Speak to you soon!

Love, Odsox.