WAR, huh, what is good for?

Well, quite a lot actually as I get more used to it.

Warhammer, at almost all levels (I don't have a top level character, but one getting close) has things you can do, usefully, alone and things that might best be done in groups. But they have a very flexible and usable grouping system so it's easy to join up into a group. The grouping system also extends to scenarios, which I hadn't really discovered last time I blogged about WAR. Scenarios are basically mini-RVR adventures. There are a few at each tier - about 3-5, more at tier 4 - where you are set up automatically in groups (although you can join as a group if you wish) and battle against similarly ranked other players. These battles typically take 10 minutes or so (they're set to time out as a draw after 15 minutes).

These scenarios are good - they let you practise your skills in an allegedly fair fight. In practise I'm not sure that the fights really are fair at most points, although a few certainly are. Certain of the scenarios play to the strengths of one side or the other and if you're on the weaker side you're basically stuffed. That said, you can still crank up some interesting rewards and excellent drops, as well as some renown points and advance towards your bigger goal. Some of the fights are, absolutely, fair too - I've played a number of them a high number of times and they're close enough to 50:50 that you'd have to say they're basically fair. I've played others a similar number of times and they can be 90:10 in favour of one side or the other.

And, to make it more fun, you can more or less advance solely through the scenarios, get good gear, possibly great gear. My first character (in the picture, although that's rather out of date now) largely ignored these and is now trying to catch up. My second character is spending much more time in scenarios and is mostly using renown gear rather than normal gear. I think you'd struggle to play 100% in scenarios but you could probably get close.

The scenario system is not perfect. For example, you're split by tier levels 1-11, 10-21, 20-31, 30-40 (yes there's a bit of overlap). To try and make the characters less extremely biased if you're under some level (8, 18, 28 and 36 I think) you get a brevet rank for the scenario. Problem with this? I'm currently 32nd level and a 36th level character is just better than me. If I look at a 36th level monster the rating says "deadly" - that might not be true for a single monster if I can prepare and ambush it alone because monsters are stupider than players usually - but for a character it's definitely true. Up against 40th level characters I basically can't hurt them and if I sneeze at the wrong time, I'm dead. I've been hit by a 40th level wizard with a staff harder than I can hit him with a sword - and he's meant to be the wimpy one in that exchange. Of course, when it works, it's great, and I can rake in the renown points and help my friends a bit - healer guard and annoy and knock the guys trying to kill them down for example, and later on I'll be able to do the hammer their back line method instead. A few more divisions (say every 5 levels) might make it work better.

The other thing that they do nicely is they make it possible to log in briefly. I finished some work this morning, logged in and played for 45 minutes. I'm now getting ready for lunch. My memory of EVE and WoW was that as the levels went up, the experience went up, the necessary time went up too. Sure, I can achieve more if I log in for 3 hours than for 45 minutes, but I can achieve more or less as much logging in for 45 minutes, 4 times a day as 3 hours all at once.

THAT's well worth it and might make it a game I play for a while longer - because I can fit it around work without feeling guilty that I'm letting people down, chewing up time etc.