Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Preview

"The ultimate goal in RvR combat is the sacking of an enemy's capital city. To do this, an army must invade and take control of the opposition's homeland. Deciding battles take place on objective-based battlefields and in instanced scenarios - point-balanced battles that make use of NPC mercenaries known as Dogs of War.
For the first time, WAR's RvR system integrates both Player vs. Player (PvP) combat and Player vs. Environment (PvE) quests on the same map. Every aspect of the game, including PvE missions, is geared towards the greater war in some important way. However, players are not required to participate in PvP combat, and may aid in the RvR war effort and enjoy the game in its entirety via PvE content."

Little dude, big staff!

I SAID NO ONE PASSES THROUGH THIS GATE!

The idea here is to put the *entire* game world in the state of war. This is why you play this game. Yes, you will be able to only do PvE stuff (the color of the quest will tell you whether or not you will encounter PvP action in the course of the mission - green will entail no PvP, yellow some, and red will mean you're bound to PvP), but if you really want to get into this game and get the best loot, then war is the way to go. Mythic is perfecting their combat system by making it an inherent and natural part of the game world - something that Blizzard hasn't managed to do with either world PvP or the Battlegrounds system. In addition to this, Mythic is introducing the so-called public quests - the idea here is that a whole bunch of people in a certain zone (entire armies in fact) will be able to work towards the resolution of the same quest, and you can join in at any time (your rewards will be proportional to the level of your involvement). The developers want to encourage team spirit at every step of the game, to make all the players work towards the same goal.

I must say that the idea of sacking capital cities for major rewards sounds extremely tantalizing. The term 'Warcraft' also implies war, but the game itself never managed to convey that sort of atmosphere. If you think about it, World of Warcraft never feels like the entire world is at war - isolated skirmishes at best is how one could describe it.

As things stand, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is slated to appear in stores sometime in 2007. The retail release will naturally be preceded by a closed and then an open beta, so those of you who are into MMORPGs, keep checking our news section for more info.

Will WAR kill WOW? I have no idea, but that idiotic sentence just made me chuckle. God, I'm so easily amused.